Average Instagram Engagement Rate For 2023

As the fourth favorite social media network in today's age, it's no surprise that Instagram's ability to gain new users and help businesses grow is huge. Based on the latest statistics, the average Instagram engagement rate is over 0.71% by business accounts.

If your objective in 2023 is to boost your Instagram engagement rate, this is the best time to discover how to do so. Directing your focus on engagement rate rather than losing sleep over followers and likes is a clever strategy before entering 2024.

If you want to learn how you can grow your Instagram engagement rate, here are the latest facts and trends you should know.

Editor’s Choice

• Instagram has the highest engagement levels across social media platforms.
• There are over 500 million daily active users on Instagram.
• Using only 3-5 hashtags in an Instagram post helps boost your engagement rate.
• Accounts with less than 5,000 followers have higher engagement rates.
• The engagement rate for carousels was 2.37% higher than for Images and Videos.

Instagram Engagement Overview

Instagram engagement comprises all the methods users can interact with your content—by likes, comments, shares, and saves. 

Boosted engagement can help your content get prioritized by the Instagram algorithm, which means you’ll continuously reach more and more of the right audience who would be interested in your brand.

Statistics on Instagram Engagement Rate

With 500 million daily active users, Instagram provides an extraordinary opportunity for companies with a visual appeal, especially those with a physical product. Engagement rates are typically higher on Instagram than on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, partly because of its format's nature. 

1. Instagram Reel engagement rates are 35% higher than other content types. 

(BusinessofApps, Adobo Magazine)

Instagram Reels has surpassed all other post types since the beginning of 2022, with 80% of brands posting at least one reel in Q3. This is a notable increase compared to 2021 when only 41% of social media brands published reel content. 

Also, Instagram Reels in Asia-Pacific are most favored within the sports industry (89%), followed by media (88%) and entertainment (87.5%).

2. Instagram posts having 3 to 4 hashtags had an average impression rate of 3.41%.

(Statista, Later)

Based on a March 2022 report, 3 to 4 hashtags were the most sufficient for user impressions. Still, engagement declined when over five hashtags were used. 

Posts with 17 or more hashtags had the least engagement, suggesting that the overuse of hashtags can harm your Instagram engagement rate. 

Instagram Engagement Statistics

Driving authentic and organic engagement should be your ultimate priority when marketing on Instagram.

Even if you are creating unique content, if no one likes or comments on it, there’s a possibility your account will fall through the cracks. Next thing you know, you’re struggling to gain customers from the platform, and your investment goes to waste.

Here are Instagram engagement statistics that prove this: 

3. Accounts with fewer than 5,000 followers have the highest Instagram Reels engagement.

(Entrepreneur, Hootsuite)

Follower count can influence your engagement rate. As of October 2022, the average Instagram engagement rates per number of followers for business accounts are:

• 10,000< followers: 0.76%
• 10,000-100,000 followers: 0.63%
• 100,000> followers: 0.49%

This suggests that the more followers you have, the less engagement you get. That’s why “smaller” Instagram influencers with a high engagement rate are usually a better option for influencer marketing partnerships.

4. Instagram story reach rate declined between 2021 and 2022.

(SproutSocial, Rival IQ)

This decline is constant across all account sizes, and smaller accounts with fewer than 10,000 followers declined the least. 

These accounts' story reach rate dropped from 5.4% in 2021 to 4.8% in 2022. Meanwhile, mid-sized brands with 50,000-200,000 followers felt the most significant impact as their reach rate dropped 1.6% from 2.4%.

5. Carousels have a higher engagement rate of 2.37% than Images and Videos.

(Publer.io, Later)

The types of posts you can post on your Instagram feed have changed over the years—from single images to carousel posts to videos. Based on the data collected by Later in 2020 to 2022, carousel posts have consistently outperformed video and image posts for the past years.

These posts often appear in users' feeds more than once, doubling (or sometimes tripling) the possibility for likes, comments, and shares. Carousel's format also lends itself to sharing more authentic and unique snapshots.

Wrap Up

With Instagram users continuing to rise in numbers, it has become one of the best platforms to reach out to audiences. The app also provides brands to provide users and consumers with a personalized experience and content.

Understanding how Instagram's engagement rate works will help a user gain more followers and interaction quickly, especially if you're a business account. Indeed, the type you post on your account is critical to increasing your engagement rate.