In online spaces, visuals are king. It’s a show not tell world where consumers are all but eschewing words in favor of graphics. Be it videos, photos or emojis, the demand is clear. When communicating marketing messages, best to use visual stories with limited text, if not in lieu it entirely.

That is unless you’re using it as a highlights reel for your Facebook content. Digiday estimates that 85% of videos are watched without sound, so a subtitle or two is key.

Want to capture the fleeting attention of your target audience and expand your reach? These Instagram stats help demonstrate why effective online marketing campaigns are heavy on the visuals.

IG User and Engagement Statistics  

600 million Instagrammers can’t be wrong. Users on the photo and video sharing platform now outnumber both twitter and snapchat, and show no signs of slowing. ‘Grammers are a loyal group who make a daily practice of engaging with visual content.

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Here’s a numerical look at why businesses are capitalizing on video marketing’s impressive reach.

1. 400 million Instagram users are active every day, posting a mind-bending 95 million photos daily.
2. Each month, users search “Instagram” more than 16,600,000 times on Google.
3. The ‘Gram has grown from 1.6 million registered businesses to more than15 million business profiles in less than a year.
4. As of 2017, more than 7% of US businesses are active on Instagram.
5. Instagram released data that showed80% of its users follow at least one brand on IG.
6. They also found that 30% of Instagram followershave made a direct purchase based on a post they saw on Instagram.
7. Instagram online advertising has jumped to 1 million since 2016.
8. Users of newer features like Instagram Stories already top 250 million daily, beating out competitors like Snapchat.
9. Posts with faces tend to garner 38% more engagement than those without.
10. Emojis are featured in more than half of all IG captions and comments.

How Visuals can Improve your Brand Strategy

The best branding strategies engage our sense of sight. And for good reason.

Research shows the brain can process visual information 60,000 times faster than even a small block of text.

Perhaps that’s why the same study revealed that 46% of surveyed participants view web design as the primary indicator that a company is credible. What does that say to us? When the images are high quality they change the way your buyers see and engage with your brand or product.

Ultimately, as our fleeting attention darts from one task and platform to the next, it’s starting to feel like visual content is the only marketing tactic with staying power.

Want some help harnessing the potential of visual content marketing? We’re ready to blast off when you are.