Eighty-six per­cent of the top glob­al brands (as ranked by Inter­brand) now have Insta­gram accounts, with mar­keters look­ing to reach some 200 mil­lion month­ly active users on the site, accord­ing to the study.

Espe­cial­ly for brands with a high­ly visu­al, or lux­u­ry prod­uct, Insta­gram pro­vides a pow­er­ful plat­form for brands to entice, engage, and reach con­sumers.

Approx­i­mate­ly 60 mil­lion pho­tos post­ed each day, with 1.6 bil­lion like inter­ac­tions, and the evi­dence is there that con­sumers are ready to engage with brand­ed con­tent. How­ev­er, brands have lot to do to dis­tin­guish them­selves from the sheer amount of images and videos being post­ed on the plat­form. Suc­cess requires a gen­uine under­stand­ing of the way con­sumers use and inter­act with the plat­form.

The study ana­lyzes the Insta­gram activ­i­ty of the top brands in the world, and pro­vides valu­able insights into how the best are using Insta­gram to build brand equi­ty, engage audi­ences, and pro­mote their prod­ucts.

9 Instagram Marketing Insights

Here are nine key take­aways from Sim­ply Mea­sured’s Insta­gram study:

1. The Majority Of Brands Have Realized The Value Of Instagram

Brand activ­i­ty on Insta­gram is grow­ing at a con­sid­er­able rate, with many devot­ing a ded­i­cat­ed resource to the pro­duc­tion of con­tent. Active brands (i.e., those who post­ed at least once in Q3 2014) have dou­bled since Q3 2012. In addi­tion, 73 per­cent of brands post at least one image or video per week, and many brands are dis­cov­er­ing suc­cess­ful ways to grow their audi­ences.

2. Daily Posting Is The Norm

The num­ber of brands post­ing at least once a day has tripled in 2014. Dai­ly post­ing is becom­ing a stan­dard for brands on the plat­form, and the trend sig­nals that brands are learn­ing how to oper­ate on Insta­gram with a mea­sured approach, devel­op­ing effec­tive tac­tics that bring val­ue to their busi­ness­es.

3. Active Brands Drive The Most Engagement

All indi­ca­tions show that con­sumers are ready to engage with brands on Insta­gram, and in fact, engage­ment with brand­ed posts is grow­ing faster than new brands are join­ing the net­work.

It shows that the oppor­tu­ni­ty is ripe for brands to invest in the plat­form, as audi­ence and lev­els of engage­ment con­tin­ue to grow.

4. Average Engagement Per Post Is Growing Fast.

The aver­age engage­ment per post has grown an incred­i­ble 416 per­cent since Q3 2012. In addi­tion, the top brands oper­at­ing on the plat­form have mul­ti­plied aver­age post engage­ment by almost five times across 2014. It indi­cates strong growth in lev­els of engage­ment on the plat­form, greater even than the growth in the num­ber of over­all users, and that is good news for brands who have the oppor­tu­ni­ty now to poten­tial­ly achieve good results with just a sin­gle post.

5. Engagement Happens Fast

On aver­age, posts by top brands on Insta­gram will get 216 com­ments, how­ev­er 50 per­cent of these com­ments will be post­ed with­in 6 hours, and a mas­sive 75 per­cent of com­ments will be post­ed in the first 48 hours. High-per­form­ing posts with more than 400 com­ments peak slight­ly lat­er, tak­ing approx­i­mate­ly 13 hours to receive 50 per­cent of the over­all com­ments.

6. Best Practice Varies By Vertical

How brands should approach their strat­e­gy for Insta­gram large­ly depends on ver­ti­cal. The media for exam­ple expe­ri­ences sig­nif­i­cant­ly high­er lev­els of engage­ment than aver­age, with 23,906 engage­ments per post, and 5,084 addi­tion­al likes and com­ments over oth­er indus­tries. This means media brands can be sig­nif­i­cant­ly more active on the chan­nel hav­ing the ben­e­fit of a much more recep­tive audi­ence.

Oth­er indus­tries such as the auto­mo­tive indus­try has the high­est num­ber of active top brands on Insta­gram at 13, and the lux­u­ry seg­ment of Inter­brand’s Top 100 list has a 100 per­cent Insta­gram adop­tion record, with all sev­en high-end goods brands active on the net­work.

Espe­cial­ly for brands with vis­cer­al, visu­al­ly-appeal­ing prod­ucts and strong brand iden­ti­ty, Insta­gram remains a pow­er­ful plat­form to raise aware­ness and build brand equi­ty.

7. Compelling Captions Support Compelling Images

The study revealed that the aver­age cap­tion among top brands was 138 char­ac­ters. In addi­tion, cap­tions that includ­ed an addi­tion­al user han­dle in the cap­tion net­ted 56 per­cent more engage­ment. How­ev­er, it’s impor­tant for brands to use @mentions in an authen­tic and rel­e­vant way, so as not to under­mine the val­ue of the tag for users.

8. Hashtags Fuel Discovery

A mas­sive 88 per­cent of brand posts includ­ed at least one hash­tag, with 91 per­cent of posts hav­ing sev­en or few­er hash­tags. Using hash­tags well rep­re­sents an impor­tant tac­tic for brands, with posts field­ing at least one hash­tag win­ning 12.6 per­cent more engage­ment.

Above all hash­tags fuel dis­cov­ery on the plat­form, allow­ing brands to cre­ate new avenues to niche groups and top­ics which they can tar­get. It pro­vides audi­ences with an organ­ic way to dis­cov­er brand­ed con­tent through areas of inter­est they may be search­ing and inter­act­ing with.

9. Location Tagging Positively Impacts Engagement

Posts tagged with a loca­tion received a whop­ping 79 per­cent high­er engage­ment. How­ev­er, inci­dences of loca­tion tag­ging amongst top brands was much rar­er in than hash­tag usage. When applic­a­ble, the prac­tice does pay off, with brands using loca­tion tag­ging aver­ag­ing 29 per­cent high­er in lev­els of engage­ment.

How Can Brand Become #Instamazing?

As cov­ered by Lisa Lacy, brands such as Mer­cedes are now using Insta­gram to launch high­ly cre­ative, inno­v­a­tive cam­paigns. The plat­form itself has proac­tive­ly tak­en steps to enable brands to engage is great brand sto­ry­telling, with a paid adver­tis­ing net­work, and chan­nel ana­lyt­ics being rolled out to enter­prise part­ners.

There is con­sid­er­able momen­tum in the dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing indus­try for brands using to be active on Insta­gram as part of their over­all mar­ket­ing strate­gies. It’s impor­tant for brands to adapt to the medi­um, and under­stand the way con­sumers are using and behav­ing on the plat­form so as to main­tain a sus­tained, pos­i­tive return for invest­ment on the chan­nel.

6 Key Takeaways For Brands Looking To Succeed On Instagram

Sim­ply Mea­sured con­clud­ed their report with six best prac­tices for brands:

1. Main­tain a bal­anced post­ing cadence. Dai­ly post­ing is becom­ing the norm for most top brands.
2. Opti­mize your cap­tions with the cor­rect length and @mentions.
3. Test loca­tion tag­ging for a pos­si­ble boost in engage­ment.
4. Use hash­tags to raise aware­ness among tar­get audi­ences.
5. Men­tion influ­en­tial and rel­e­vant users in cap­tions to lever­age new audi­ences.
6. Devel­op a prac­ti­cal and sophis­ti­cat­ed mea­sure­ment strat­e­gy.

You can down­load Sim­ply Mea­sured’s full Q3 2014 Insta­gram Study here.