Instagram Brand Post Reach Rates Declining

September 20, 2022

This article is included in these additional categories:

Customer Engagement | Customer-Centric | Digital | Social Media

Average post reach rates – measured as a function of the total reach of a post and the total number of a brand’s followers – are declining on both Instagram and Facebook this year, though more rapidly on the former, according to a Socialinsider analysis of almost 1 million posts on the two platforms.

The analysis finds that average post reach rates on Instagram have declined by almost 20% over the course of this year, from 16.33% in January to 13.51% in January. The decrease is even more acute when looking back to earlier dates, with Socialinsider noting that the reach rate on Instagram has dropped by 29% compared to last year’s values.

Instagram’s latest monthly average of 13.51% in July still sits well above the comparable figure for Facebook, which was 8.6%. That in itself was down by almost 8% from January’s 9.31%, and marks an even greater drop from 10.43% in August of last year.

Brands witnessing these declines may want to consider upping their use of Instagram Reels: according to a recent analysis from Socialinsider, reach rates are consistently higher for Reels than other post types (by a multiple of 2.5-12x) regardless of the profile’s follower count.

Engagement by reach has remained more stable on Instagram over the past year. This metric examines total engagement divided by the number of posts published and then divided by total reach. Socialinsider explains that “with reach representing the total number of unique viewers a social post gained, engagement by reach displays how many interactions a post has gathered from those viewers.” This is considered an insightful engagement metric – perhaps more so than one that takes into account follower count – as it shows “how relevant a piece of content was for those users that have actually seen it.”

On this front Instagram has maintained a solid showing, with its average 3.35% figure in July actually being up from the start of the year, when this metric stood at an average of 3.26%. (July’s figure is down from a peak of 3.53% in June, but the broad trend line is steady.)

By contrast, engagement rate by reach seems to be declining rapidly on Facebook in recent months, plummeting from a high of 2.01% in February to just 1.4% in July, a decline of about 30% in the space of 5 months. While it’s little surprise that Facebook’s engagement rates are lower than Instagram’s, these latest figures suggest that brands are struggling to engage with their followers on the platform.

For more, check out the analysis here.

About the Data: The results are based on the analysis of 933,200 social posts (613,013 Facebook posts and 320,187 Instagram posts) published between July 2021 and July 2022.

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