Instagram Stories: 2021 Benchmarks and Trends

Social Media Marketing — Wed., Dec. 22, 2021

Businesses with large followings on Instagram more than doubled their use of the social network's stories feature in 2021, according to recent research from Socialinsider. Audiences are most likely to exit during the first few stories from a business, with 17% dropping off during the first story and 10% during the third. Stories tend to have significantly lower reach compared with standard Instagram posts.

The report was based on an analysis of 962,402 stories from 6,014 business accounts posted between January 2020 and October 2021. Businesses with more than 100,000 Instagram followers posted 49 stories, on average, per month in 2021, up from 24 stories, on average, per month in 2020. After the fourth story exits plateau, indicating that Instagram stories from businesses tend to have a core audience that sticks with most/all of the updates.

The analysis found that businesses with smaller followings did not increase their use of stories nearly as much year over year. Instagram stories may be an effective way for businesses to engage an audience, however, reach is lower than standard posts.

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