Instagram Engagement

This data was originally featured in the February 10, 2021 newsletter found here: https://www.trustinsights.ai/blog/2021/02/in-the-headlights-february-10-2021-dark-search-instagram-engagement-ethics-in-ai/

In this week’s Rear View Mirror, we look at our friend, Instagram engagement rates. This week, let’s look at brands. How have over 3,000 brands fared in the last 10 months?

What we see since the pandemic began is a slow and steady decline in brand engagement after midsummer. Once audiences got settled into the new normal, engagement with brand accounts declined to roughly 0.32%. In particular, we saw lower than normal engagement over the holiday season, followed by a resumption of engagement in January.

What’s the key takeaway? Like other Facebook properties, Instagram is slowly but surely becoming pay-to-play for brands. It still does sport higher engagement than Facebook itself, but the days of “post it and they will come” are long past. Be sure you’ve budgeted appropriately to have Instagram post content be sponsored if Instagram is part of your core social media strategy.

Methodology: Trust Insights used Facebook’s Crowdtangle software to extract 1,982,108 posts from 3,099 brands. The dates of extraction are April 1, 2020 – February 1, 2021. The date of study is February 7, 2021. Trust Insights is the sole sponsor of the study and neither gave nor received compensation for data used, beyond applicable service fees to software vendors, and declares no competing interests.

Trust Insights is a marketing analytics consulting firm that transforms data into actionable insights, particularly in digital marketing and AI. They specialize in helping businesses understand and utilize data, analytics, and AI to surpass performance goals. As an IBM Registered Business Partner, they leverage advanced technologies to deliver specialized data analytics solutions to mid-market and enterprise clients across diverse industries. Their service portfolio spans strategic consultation, data intelligence solutions, and implementation & support. Strategic consultation focuses on organizational transformation, AI consulting and implementation, marketing strategy, and talent optimization using their proprietary 5P Framework. Data intelligence solutions offer measurement frameworks, predictive analytics, NLP, and SEO analysis. Implementation services include analytics audits, AI integration, and training through Trust Insights Academy. Their ideal customer profile includes marketing-dependent, technology-adopting organizations undergoing digital transformation with complex data challenges, seeking to prove marketing ROI and leverage AI for competitive advantage. Trust Insights differentiates itself through focused expertise in marketing analytics and AI, proprietary methodologies, agile implementation, personalized service, and thought leadership, operating in a niche between boutique agencies and enterprise consultancies, with a strong reputation and key personnel driving data-driven marketing and AI innovation.