23+ Top Instagram Stories Statistics For 2024
Are you looking for the latest Instagram Stories statistics? We’ve got you covered.
Instagram Stories allow users to share photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours. They capitalize on the growing trend of short-form content.
But should you be using them in your social media strategy? That depends.
To help you out, we’ve rounded up the latest Instagram Stories stats that you need to know.
And, we’ll also cover some Facebook Stories stats and facts for good measure.
Editor’s picks
- Half a billion people use Stories every day. (Facebook for Business)
- The longer the frames, the lower your retention rate. (Rival IQ 2021 Instagram Stories Benchmark Report)
- Instagram Stories lead to higher purchase conversions. (Instagram for Business)
Instagram Stories usage statistics and facts
Who would use Instagram Stories? How popular are they? And how are digital marketers using Stories to reach their audience?
And how long can you make your Instagram Stories before users start to drop off?
These are just some of the things you need to know before launching an Instagram Stories marketing campaign. And we have all the answers to these questions and more in this section.
Let’s go right ahead explore the Instagram Stories usage statistics and facts we’ve gathered.
Half a billion people use Stories every day.
According to Facebook, more than 500 million people use Stories across all the company’s platforms — Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
And we should also point out that there are 4 million advertisers using Stories to promote their products and services. Facebook says that a third of the most viewed Instagram Stories are from businesses.
There are 1 billion Stories shared every day across the Facebook family of apps.
Source: Facebook for Business
Related Reading: 50+ Facebook Statistics You Need To Know.
On average, a brand will publish 10 Instagram Stories per month.
According to Rival IQ, a brand will use Instagram Stories about 10 times in a month. That’s about once every three days. However, brands that are in the top 25% will publish at least 16 times per month which translates to new posts every other day.
If your brand isn’t posting on Instagram Stories right now, you might want to look into this social media marketing strategy so you don’t get left behind.
Source: Rival IQ 2021 Instagram Stories Benchmark Report
The longer the frames, the lower your retention rate.
Rival IQ said that the more story frames you insert, the lower your retention rate will become. This makes total sense considering it takes a lot to keep the attention of a user.
The retention rate for 2020 only increased by 1% from the previous year. And the biggest dip was from 1 to 2 frames a day before users swipe past a story.
We should also point out that the story reach rate for posts is also on the decline. Mid-sized brands with 10,000 to 50,000 followers were able to get a consistent reach rate though. But brands with more than 200,000 followers had a 34% drop in retention rate in 2020.
Source: Rival IQ 2021 Instagram Stories Benchmark Report
As of 2019, Instagram Stories hit 500 million daily active users.
It’s amazing how fast Instagram Stories grew in just a couple of years. Eight months after Instagram Stories launched, it was able to overtake Snapchat in daily active users at 150 million.
By June 2017, Instagram Stories hit another milestone as it reached 250 million daily active users. And by January 2019, Instagram Stories had 500 million daily active users.
Source: Backlinko
India has the most number of Instagram users.
87.77% of Instagram’s 1.39 billion users are living outside of the United States. India is the country with the most number of Instagram users at 180 million. This is followed by the United States at 170 million.
Other countries on the list include Brazil (110 million), Indonesia (93 million), and Russia (61 million).
Source: Backlinko
Posting up to 5 stories per day gets you a 70% retention rate.
According to Social Insider, brands can get away with posting 5 stories per day. Studies show that it would even give the brand a 70% retention rate if their users generally watch that brand’s stories.
However, users that are not interested in the brand’s content will most likely exit after the first 3 Instagram stories. The highest drop-off is 12.99% which happens after the first story. This is followed by a 9.75% drop after the second story and 8.12% after the third.
Source: Social Insider
Most Instagram users are under the age of 35.
As of July 2021, the majority of Instagram users are under the age of 35 according to Statista. While there are only 7.5% of users aged 13 to 17 years old, 29.9% of users are between 18 and 24.
32.1% of users are between 25 and 34 years old. There’s a significant drop-off from that point on. There are only 16.3% of users aged 35 to 44 years old. Those that are aged 45 to 54 only represent 8.1% of Instagram users. There are even fewer users between 55 and 64 at 3.8%.
Source: Statista
Instagram Stories has a language translation feature now.
Instagram has another accessibility improvement to be proud of. With the release of Instagram Stories’ language translation feature, users will be able to translate stories with foreign language overlays into their language.
Users will find a See Translations banner whenever a foreign language is detected based on the user’s phone settings. When you tap the options, you’ll see the translation panel. Instagram currently supports over 90 languages.
Not only is this feature great for users, but it’s also good news for companies and brands that wish to expand to a global market.
Source: Social Media Today
Instagram is working on vertical Instagram Stories.
Instagram wants to give its users a TikTok feel. That’s why it’s introducing vertical Instagram Stories. For context, Instagram Stories always felt more like Snapchat, using taps and horizontal swipes.
However, vertical swiping felt more up-to-speed with what users want these days, especially for those using mobile devices to navigate. This move could also signify that Instagram will start prioritizing videos rather than static images to go toe-to-toe with TikTok.
Source: TechCrunch
Instagram Stories now has an auto-caption feature.
Instagram Stories now lets its users add auto-captions using caption stickers. For now, the feature is only available in English however there are plans to roll this feature out to other countries that speak other languages.
A version of this feature is already available in IGTV and the Threads app. But by adding it to Stories and Reels, it will make content more efficient and inclusive, especially for the deaf or hard of hearing. There are also English speakers who prefer to watch Stories without audio.
Users will have the option of adjusting the style and color of the captions after they’re generated. They can even edit individual words and correct misspellings that weren’t generated correctly.
Source: The Verge
Instagram Stories business statistics and facts
In this section, we’ll show you just how well Instagram Stories did for Facebook. And we’ll also dive into some of the features that the company is launching to better serve its users.
All of these statistics and facts will give you an idea of how far Instagram Stories has come and the direction it’s currently headed.
Facebook announced a scheduling feature for Instagram Stories.
Social media marketers can breathe a collective sigh of relief as Instagram Stories will soon have a scheduling feature that makes it easier to plan posts ahead of time.
Facebook’s Business Suite will get new features including Stories scheduling as well as a new business discovery process from the News Feed.
Now users will be able to compose and schedule Facebook and Instagram Stories within the planning element of Business Suite. All scheduled posts will appear in your content calendar when ready.
Source: Social Media Today
Paid Stories subscriptions could be coming.
Instagram confirmed that it’s working on a feature called Exclusive Stories. This would work like Twitter’s Super Follow subscription feature that shows exclusive content for fan club members.
There are also measures in place that will prevent people from screen capturing exclusive stories. If Instagram users want to tease their exclusive content, they could use the Highlight feature.
Because this feature is only being tested internally, there’s a chance that Instagram could scrap it altogether if things don’t work out the way they want them to.
Source: Engadget
Instagram Stories lead to higher purchase conversions.
Safe + Fair, a clean label food brand, used Instagram Stories to showcase its products including its flavored granola and popcorn products. It posted user-generated content that showed people enjoying its products. Each ad published has a Shop Now button that links to the company’s website.
The result? It had a 15-point lift in brand awareness. Its sales also rose by $78,300 which is a 44% lift in purchase conversions.
The company’s paid social coordinator said “Focusing on running ads in Instagram Stories helped us see the power of our short-form animations and the effectiveness of user-generated content. Stories have been a great way for us to share the personality of our brand while continuing to improve upon our paid media strategies”.
Source: Instagram for Business
Instagram reached the 1 billion users milestone in 2020.
Instagram achieved something amazing in 2020. It managed to hit the 1 billion users milestone that year. This was partly due to the pandemic. Because of the effects of Covid-19, Instagram hit the 1 billion mark four years earlier than predicted.
And there’s reason to believe that Instagram will be able to maintain the momentum it gained in 2020. This is despite predictions that the worldwide growth will drop to 7.3% in the following year.
The expected growth will be due to the changes in the competitive landscape of social media like the ban of TikTok in India. In the following year, the growth will have little to do with the pandemic anymore.
Source: eMarketer
Instagram is the 2nd-most popular platform for ad spend.
Facebook is the most popular social media platform for ad spending. However, Instagram comes in second place. 36% of survey respondents said that they’ll advertise on Facebook while 29% said they’ll do so on Instagram.
This means Facebook Inc. will receive most of the social media ad spend from the 65% of the companies included in the survey.
The three companies that are expected to take in 70% of digital advertising in 2021 are Amazon, Facebook, and Google. And Facebook alone is expected to hold 22.1% of digital ad spending.
Only 22% said that they’ll spend on ads for LinkedIn. Even less (13%) are spending money on Twitter.
Source: Hubspot
Instagram Stories competitor statistics and facts
We all know that Instagram isn’t the only social media platform with a Stories feature. But how much do you know about its competitors?
Let’s talk about how TikTok, Twitter, and Snapchat are performing. Do people like using them? Which platform do they prefer? Is Instagram way ahead of the curve or will other platforms be able to catch up?
Let’s find out.
Twitter is removing its version of Instagram Stories.
Twitter recently revealed that it’s removing its Fleets feature, the social media platform’s version of Instagram Stories. There’s no exact reason provided other than a vague statement telling its users that it’s “working on some new stuff”.
The company admitted that Fleets didn’t take off as much as it would have hoped. Not many are into using the feature since its introduction. And so Twitter decided to take a step back and work on other things instead.
Source: First Post
Twitter lets you share tweets directly to Instagram Stories.
Instagram users had to rely on screen captures if they wanted to share tweets they find interesting. That is no longer the case.
Twitter now lets you share a tweet directly to Instagram Stories. This allows for a better, smoother transition between social media platforms. We should point out that Instagram users won’t get redirected to Twitter if they tap the shared tweet but it’s a great feature nonetheless.
According to reports, this move was a result of investors who are fearful that Twitter is stagnating.
Source: TechCrunch
TikTok is getting its own version of Instagram Stories.
TikTok wants its users to create short-form content like an Instagram Story. It’s currently testing its own Stories feature, making it the last of the major social media platforms to finally have some version of it.
Based on a few screen grabs, TikTok will also name its version Stories and it will become accessible through a newly added slide-over sidebar. Content will only be available for a time before it disappears forever.
The pilot test for the feature will happen in a number of countries outside the United States.
Source: Gizmodo
Gen Z users prefer watching Stories on Snapchat.
Given a choice between Snapchat and Instagram, millennials would prefer to watch Story content on the latter. Gen Z users, which are mostly teens, consume a lot of Stories but they’d rather view them on Snapchat.
59% of millennials will watch on Instagram while 52% will do so over on Snapchat.
What’s interesting is that neither Gen Z nor millennials watch Stories on Facebook. Only 34% of Gen Z users and 48% of millennials use Facebook to watch Stories.
Source: Business Insider
Snapchat’s daily active users increased 17% year-over-year.
In the company’s second-quarter 2020 financial results, Snap Inc. said that its daily active users increased by 17% year-over-year (YoY) to 238 million. Its second-quarter revenue also increased by 17% YoY to $454 million. Even its operating cash flow improved by 31% YoY to $67 million.
This is a sign that Snapchat is still growing to this day. Its daily active users also grew by 35 million from the previous year.
Source: Snap 2nd Quarter 2020 Financial Results
TikTok and Snapchat rank below Instagram worldwide in popularity.
According to Statista, TikTok and Snapchat are ranked at 7th and 12th place respectively in terms of popularity worldwide as of July 2021.
On the other hand, Instagram is in 4th position just behind Facebook, YouTube, and WhatsApp.
Instagram has 1.386 billion active users. TikTok has 732 million users while Snapchat has 514 million active users of its own.
Source: Statista
Facebook Stories statistics and facts
While Facebook and Instagram belong in the same family since they are owned by Meta, both use Stories to engage their users.d
Let’s look into Facebook’s position as a source of Stories and if people prefer to use it over Instagram. The answer might come as a shock to some of you.
Most people watch Stories on Facebook.
While Gen Z and millennials might prefer to watch Stories on Snapchat or Instagram, Facebook still dominates when you take all user demographics into account. Hubspot surveyed 275 consumers across the United States. And 70% of the respondents said that they use Facebook to watch Stories.
This makes sense as Facebook is still growing to this day. In fact, Facebook Stories surpassed the 500 million daily active user mark which Instagram hit just a few months prior.
Source: Hubspot
Most people agree that Facebook Stories are immersive and authentic.
Facebook says that 73% of people in the United States agree that Stories are immersive. It helps them experience new things outside of their everyday lives. 65% also said that they’re authentic in that it enables them to feel closer and more up-to-date with their friends.
57% of US-based users said that Stories help them feel part of a larger community.
A lot of people are also looking forward to consuming more Stories content. 62% of people in the US said that they plan to use the feature more in the future than they do today.
That’s understandable since Stories are designed to fit with how people use their phones right now. 90% of the time, people interact with their phones vertically. And since Stories are optimized for that, it leads to a better, more engaging user experience.
Source: Facebook for Business
Digital marketers are buying most of their ads from Facebook.
50% of marketing teams spend at least half of their marketing budget on social media ads. But as of 2020, 96% of marketers plan on increasing their budget for Facebook.
Only 59% said that they plan on buying ads on Instagram. And only 33% have plans to buy ads on Snapchat.
LinkedIn and Twitter are about the same in popularity. 76% of companies plan on advertising on LinkedIn while 75% said they’ll work with Twitter.
Marketers are favoring platforms with the most users and the widest reach. It seems that demographics don’t matter as much for now.
Source: Hubspot
Instagram stories statistics sources
Conclusion
So as you can probably tell by now, the future of Instagram Stories is still as bright as ever. It still has a huge database of users and it’s still growing. It even comes on top of other competitors in the space.
And with all the innovations that Facebook is coming out with, Instagram is bound to be more accessible for its users. There are even features like the paid Stories subscription that’ll make Instagram more appealing for content creators that want to make some money. Instagram started testing this feature initially in early 2022.
Statistics show that more brands are allocating budget towards Facebook and Instagram.
We believe that it’s still worth investing in Instagram Stories whether you’re a big brand or just an individual who wants to connect with a wider audience.
Finally, if you’d like to learn more about Instagram in general, be sure to check out our roundup of Instagram statistics. Or to learn more about social media in general, check out our collection of social media statistics.
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