Instagram marketing firm Later has recently published a report about individual industry benchmarks across the platform in 2022, allowing users to see just how well each is performing.
Instagram marketing is in and of itself becoming a massive market with a lot of customer draw and massive returns, depending on the product or company. It’s a social media platform that harbors individuals from across all ages, and has an especially large chunk of younger consumers, who are also considered to be more reliable in terms of consistent online purchases. Do I think the way that advertising firms and agencies target young, impressionable minds is slightly shady at best and flagrantly wrong at worst? Well, yes, but if I keep bringing up my moral revulsion every time an article is tossed my way, I’d be out of a job sooner than a business analyst can say stock market, or hedge fund. I don’t know how those people talk, so I just assume it’s something super stereotypical and haughty. At any rate, let’s take a look at the sort of content that performs well on Instagram, and what could use the help of firms such as Later. No, this isn’t sponsored, I just didn’t have a better transition up my sleeve.
As far as engagement goes, which is how many people interact with a piece of content regardless of how many people see it, animals seem to consistently perform the best. They were tied with Arts & Culture and design for first place in 2021, and have now outgrown the other two by an increase to 2% in engagement this year. Let’s be honest, if you see a cute video of a kitten or puppy without at least the slightest twinge of happiness, you need help. I’m definitely exaggerating, but I’ll let my readers judge just how much themselves. Animals are also the only industry to have seen a two percent increase in engagement, with photography following behind at a short 1.99%. Surprisingly, makeup and beauty, which is what someone typically thinks of when the words Instagram ads pop into mind, only enjoy a 1.19% engagement rate, compared to our top runners: animals and photography.
Perhaps this is better explained by the fact that makeup as an industry also has one of the lowest reaches of the bunch at 12.53%. Animals, despite being the material most interacted with, enjoy a relatively low reach rate at 14.98%, potentially being the industry giving the most bang for its buck. Sports and fitness have the highest reach rates across the board at 19.43%, and enjoy a decent 1.75% engagement rate for it as well. Overall, however, real estate has displayed the largest increase in reach, even if it ultimately still falls rather short of its competition. Currently standing at 14.69%, real estate could still use some work despite a 6.29% year over year increase in reach. Turns out that the generations that are either too young or too broke to afford houses don’t quite enjoy talking about them, and would rather look at the occasional cute animal instead. Shocker.
Engagement as a whole didn’t see much of a rise in any individual department, and overall saw a total decrease by 28.55%, which doesn’t spell good news for Instagram. Sure, it may be a popular and useful hub for advertisement right now, but so was Twitter and we know that the best coverage that platform’s seen in the past decade has been Elon Musk buying the company out in 2022. With competition from the likes of TikTok swiftly rising, and taking out much of the surrounding competition alongside it, Instagram and its parent company Meta need to wise up, and fast.
The report’s very comprehensive at twenty-two pages, covers the top thirty industries on Instagram, and even offers individual advice for marketers looking to succeed in them. There are spotlight stories that cover both specific industries, and also describe the success stories of Instagram’s top influencers and accounts right now. Popular names such as Will Edmond and Allegra Shaw are some of the accounts that they have covered in this surprisingly well-researched article. It’s definitely worth a look if you’re building brand presence on the platform.
Read next: Digital Content Marketing Sees An Exponential Rise During And After The Pandemic
Instagram marketing is in and of itself becoming a massive market with a lot of customer draw and massive returns, depending on the product or company. It’s a social media platform that harbors individuals from across all ages, and has an especially large chunk of younger consumers, who are also considered to be more reliable in terms of consistent online purchases. Do I think the way that advertising firms and agencies target young, impressionable minds is slightly shady at best and flagrantly wrong at worst? Well, yes, but if I keep bringing up my moral revulsion every time an article is tossed my way, I’d be out of a job sooner than a business analyst can say stock market, or hedge fund. I don’t know how those people talk, so I just assume it’s something super stereotypical and haughty. At any rate, let’s take a look at the sort of content that performs well on Instagram, and what could use the help of firms such as Later. No, this isn’t sponsored, I just didn’t have a better transition up my sleeve.
As far as engagement goes, which is how many people interact with a piece of content regardless of how many people see it, animals seem to consistently perform the best. They were tied with Arts & Culture and design for first place in 2021, and have now outgrown the other two by an increase to 2% in engagement this year. Let’s be honest, if you see a cute video of a kitten or puppy without at least the slightest twinge of happiness, you need help. I’m definitely exaggerating, but I’ll let my readers judge just how much themselves. Animals are also the only industry to have seen a two percent increase in engagement, with photography following behind at a short 1.99%. Surprisingly, makeup and beauty, which is what someone typically thinks of when the words Instagram ads pop into mind, only enjoy a 1.19% engagement rate, compared to our top runners: animals and photography.
Perhaps this is better explained by the fact that makeup as an industry also has one of the lowest reaches of the bunch at 12.53%. Animals, despite being the material most interacted with, enjoy a relatively low reach rate at 14.98%, potentially being the industry giving the most bang for its buck. Sports and fitness have the highest reach rates across the board at 19.43%, and enjoy a decent 1.75% engagement rate for it as well. Overall, however, real estate has displayed the largest increase in reach, even if it ultimately still falls rather short of its competition. Currently standing at 14.69%, real estate could still use some work despite a 6.29% year over year increase in reach. Turns out that the generations that are either too young or too broke to afford houses don’t quite enjoy talking about them, and would rather look at the occasional cute animal instead. Shocker.
Engagement as a whole didn’t see much of a rise in any individual department, and overall saw a total decrease by 28.55%, which doesn’t spell good news for Instagram. Sure, it may be a popular and useful hub for advertisement right now, but so was Twitter and we know that the best coverage that platform’s seen in the past decade has been Elon Musk buying the company out in 2022. With competition from the likes of TikTok swiftly rising, and taking out much of the surrounding competition alongside it, Instagram and its parent company Meta need to wise up, and fast.
The report’s very comprehensive at twenty-two pages, covers the top thirty industries on Instagram, and even offers individual advice for marketers looking to succeed in them. There are spotlight stories that cover both specific industries, and also describe the success stories of Instagram’s top influencers and accounts right now. Popular names such as Will Edmond and Allegra Shaw are some of the accounts that they have covered in this surprisingly well-researched article. It’s definitely worth a look if you’re building brand presence on the platform.
