Here are the latest Instagram Live statistics and facts.
Find out how many people use the live streaming feature on Instagram and what that means for marketers.
Plus, we’ve included the list of the most viewed Instagram Live video streams ever. See it below.
Contents
- Significant Instagram Live Statistics
- Top 5 most viewed Instagram Live streams
- Instagram Live Usage
- Instagram User Demographics
Significant Instagram Live Statistics
- Acun Ilicali holds the record for the highest number of views (3M+) in an Instagram Live stream.
- Instagram is the 4th most popular social media in the world, with an estimated 2 billion monthly users.
- Over 100 million people worldwide watch Instagram Live per day.
- Roughly 20% or 1 in 5 Instagram users watch an IG Live stream.
- 14% of marketers posted an Instagram Live video in 2021.
- Most people stop watching a live video stream in less than 90 seconds if it has low picture quality.
- Instagram users spend 11.2 hours per month on the app.
- Generation Z is the most prominent user of Instagram Live since they’re the biggest users of social media in general.
- Instagram is the 3rd most popular platform sharing the spot with Twitter among live social media viewers.
Top 5 most viewed Instagram Live streams
1. Acun Ilicali holds the record for the highest number of views in an Instagram Live stream.
His streamed video on May 25th, 2020, reached 3 million views. A Turkish TV star, TV owner, and producer streamed a video revealing new information about a popular Turkish reality show, “Survivor 2020”. In the live video, he announced the changes in the survivor camps involved, which attracted a record number of people.
2. Tekashi 6ix9ine holds the second spot in the most viewed Instagram Live stream.
The American rapper known for rainbow hair and teeth grills amassed a crowd of 2 million viewers in his May 8th, 2020, stream after being released from prison. The rapper got plenty of attention when he explained why he snitched on his criminal gang, Nine Trey Bloods.
3. Babyface and Teddy Riley reached a new milestone streaming their “Verzuz” battle over 2 hours long on April 20th, 2020.
The R&B legends of the 90s played their songs and amassed 512,000 views on Instagram Live.
4. Tony Lanez, a Canadian rapper famous for his “Quarantine Radio” show during the pandemic, broke the most views on Instagram Live at the time.
He hosted Drake, another famous Canadian musician, on March 31st, 2020, when the stream reached 310,000 live viewers. He also hosted various artists, the likes of; Justin Bieber, Chris Brown, Lil Baby, Megan Thee Stallion, and others.
5. Blackpink’s Jennie (Jennie Kim) is a South Korean singer, rapper, and actress who reached 277,000 views on January 25th, 2020.
In her 6-minute stream, she unboxed Gentle Monster sunglasses as part of a project. She also hosted her Blackpink girl group members and the king of Kpop, G-Dragon, which received an excited response from the viewers.
Here’s a table of the most viewed Instagram Live videos ever:
| Name | Views | Content | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Acun Ilicali | 3 million | Survivor 2020 info reveal | May 25th 2020 |
| Tekashi 6ix9ine | 2 million | After prison stream | May 8th 2020 |
| Babyface and Teddy Riley | 512,000 | Verzuz battle stream | Apr 20th 2020 |
| Tory Lanez | 315,000 | Hosting Drake in his Quarantine Radio show | March 31st 2020 |
| Blackpink’s Jennie (Jennie Kim) | 277,000 | Hosting Blackpink & G-Dragoon | January 25th 2020 |
Here are a short bio and facts about Instagram Live:
Instagram Live was launched in 2016 and reached peak popularity in 2020 during the pandemic lockdowns when people craved direct human interaction.
Today, Instagram is the 4th most popular social media in the world, with an estimated 2 billion monthly users.
It’s surpassed only by Meta’s Facebook in 1st, Alphabet’s YouTube in 2nd, and Meta’s WhatsApp service in 3rd spot.
How much time do people spend on IG?
An average user spends 11.2 hours per month on the IG mobile app. The time spent on Instagram in 2021 has grown 10% to almost 1 more hour per month from the 2020 average.
While the data for the US and UK is a bit different:
- US 7.7 hours spent on IG per month
- UK 7.9 hours spent on IG per month
About 70% of the posts on Instagram are left unseen, so having a good marketing strategy is a must.
How does Instagram Live (IG Live) work?
Instagram Live videos have priority on the IG newsfeed showing at 1st place, and followers get a notification of every live video when it’s happening. It enables live communication with your Instagram followers and offers a more genuine way to create content that doesn’t allow for post-production editing. It’s raw and in real-time, which doesn’t get more authentic.
Instagram Live shows the video for 24 hours after going live and deletes it afterward unless you save it as a video. The time limit for a stream used to be 1 hour, but it’s now 4 hours. Instagram recognized some people want longer streams where you can host shows and events.
It’s one of the best tools to create highly engaging customers and brand loyalty. The only thing you need to start is an Instagram account and a capable smartphone and you’re ready to go.
Instagram Live Usage
How many people watch Instagram Live per day?
Over 100 million people worldwide watch Instagram Live in a day, according to Instagram data.
And there are over 1 million prominent users who watch IG Live daily.
With 500 million active daily Instagram users worldwide, 100 million isn’t that high yet, but the trend is positive. People are slowly adopting IG Live videos as part of a smart marketing strategy.
Based on DataReportal data, around 300 million people use Instagram Live weekly.
And the pandemic helped the service boost its usage.
Instagram Live use surged 70% during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns in the US.
There’s no data on how many users in the US alone use IG Live, but Americans don’t represent the largest user base.
Instagram number of users by top 3 countries in 2022:
| Country | # of Instagram users |
|---|---|
| India | 230 million |
| United States | 159.75 million |
| Brazil | 119.45 million |
What percentage of Instagram users watch live video streams?
Roughly 20% or 1 in 5 Instagram users watch an IG Live stream.
While the feature isn’t as popular as stories or reels. Stories are watched by every Instagram user as more than 500 million watch them daily.
And IG Reels aren’t far behind, with 91% of users saying they watch videos weekly, which means roughly 455 million.
Source: Digital 2022 Global Overview, BusinessInsider, Instagram, Meta Earnings Call
Find source links at the bottom.
How many marketers use Instagram Live?
14% of marketers posted an Instagram Live video in 2021.
The estimate is that roughly over 415,000 live videos were posted in 2021 for marketing purposes.
28% of marketers use Instagram for marketing, so the fact that 14% use IG Live means 50% of marketers who use Instagram also use IG Live videos to reach their audience.
Live videos are guaranteed to be the latest and most authentic announcements for any brand or personality. This is why many people trust and like them more than regular posts that can be scheduled and heavily edited.
Digital creators are investing 28% of their budget for live streaming.
Influencers recognize the value of live video and directly connecting with their fans, as almost a third of their budget is spent on live video.
82% of people would rather watch a live video from a brand than an average social post.
This means more engagement and better audience reach for marketers who employ IG live video streaming as part of their campaign.
It’s estimated that almost 3 million marketers worldwide use Instagram, and 1.5 million use IG Live video streaming to reach their audience.
On average social media live streaming reaches from 5% to 14% more people than live-stream gaming.
While game streaming is hugely popular among a smaller group of people, social media streaming reaches a larger audience overall.
Most people stop watching a live video stream in less than 90 seconds if it has low picture quality. Low-quality streams are a big mistake that can cost businesses a lot of money. Sound quality is important too, so get a good microphone.
67% of viewers say stream quality is the most important factor when watching a live video.
Reasons why brands should use Instagram for advertising:
- 90% of people follow a brand on Instagram
- 2 in 3 say Instagram helps interaction with brands
- 50% are more interested in a brand when they see ads for it on Instagram
Instagram has almost 30% (29.9%) ad reach of the total number of internet users. In other words, IG ads can potentially reach 1.48 billion people. That is 18.7% of the global population if you include non-internet users.
How popular is live streaming compared to other video?
Live video streaming is the 4th most popular video content type.
When asking worldwide internet users aged 16-64 years what type of video content they watch weekly, video live streams came up 4th.
Weekly usage reach of video content types:
| Type of video content | Popularity |
|---|---|
| Music video | 51% |
| Comedy, meme, viral video | 36.7% |
| Tutorial or how-to video | 30.6% |
| Video live stream | 29.5% |
| Educational video | 28.9% |
| Product review video | 27.4% |
| Gaming video | 27.1% |
| Sports clip, highlight video | 26.3% |
| Influencer or vlog videos | 25.6% |
Source: Instagram, GWI Live Streaming report, Livestream, Business Instagram, Statista, Digital 2022: April Global Statshot
How popular is Instagram Live in the US?
Instagram Live is the 2nd most popular platform among US live stream viewers.
43% of US live stream viewers aged 18 -34 said they use Instagram Live in a 2021 survey.
While IG Live is popular, it’s not the most popular according to the 2022 survey of 1098 adult respondents.
YouTube Live is more popular, with 45% of live stream viewers in the US saying they watch it.
Live news and sports are the most common content for streaming outside gaming. New content types have emerged during the pandemic, including live concerts, some even streamed in the metaverse, and “shoppertainment” events (a combination of a shopping and entertainment event).
Source: Statista 2, Statista 3
Instagram User Demographics
What generation/age group watches Instagram Live the most?
While there’s no data specific for IG Live, we can assume it’s similar to the social video engagement demographics:
61% of women and 59% of men watch live videos on IG. Women use IG Live a bit more contrary to the general audence which include more men than women. More on that later.
16 to 24-year-olds are the biggest group, with 70% of them watching.
That means Generation Z is the most prominent user of Instagram Live since they’re the biggest users of social media in general.
Here’s a table of social video engagement by age groups:
| Age group | Social video engagement |
|---|---|
| 16-24 years | 70% |
| 25-34 years | 64% |
| 35-44 years | 59% |
| 45-54 years | 51% |
| 55-64 years | 42% |
What are the Instagram demographics in general?
For the first time in history, there are more males than females using Instagram, 50.7% male and 49.3% female. The reason for this change is a major influx of new users from Asia who are predominantly male.
25–34-year-olds are the biggest group representing 31.5% of the IG audience. It’s followed closely by users aged 18-24 with a 30.1% share.
| Age | Female | Male |
|---|---|---|
| 13-17 years | 3.9% | 4.6% |
| 18-24 years old | 13.7% | 16.4% |
| 25-34 years old | 15.1% | 16.4% |
| 35-44 years old | 8.6% | 7.5% |
| 45-54 years old | 4.5% | 3.5% |
| 55-64 years old | 2.2% | 1.4% |
| 65+ years old | 1.2% | 0.9% |
Source: GWI Social Flagship report, DataReportal 2022 Instagram, Statista 4, Digital 2022: April Global Statshot
How many Americans use Instagram?
Around 40% of US adults say they use IG.
This number is below the usage rates for YouTube, which is used by 81% of American adults, and Facebook at 69%.
59% of users log in to Instagram daily: 38% multiple times, 21% about once per day, and 41% less frequently.
Here’s a table about it:
| % of IG users | Logins per day |
|---|---|
| 38% | Multiple times |
| 21% | About once per day |
| 41% | Less frequently |
Live streaming video is the 3rd most engaging content on Instagram.
The most engaging are short form video-reels at 66%, followed closely by images at 61% of users reporting high engagement for the content types. In 3rd place, 37% of users report live video streaming to be the most engaging.
| Type of content on IG | Engagement |
|---|---|
| Short-form video-reels | 66% |
| Images | 61% |
| Live video (Instagram Live) | 37% |
| Gifs/memes | 32% |
| text posts | 32% |
| User-generated content | 26% |
| Long-form video | 24% |
| Audio | 13% |
| Links/other content | 11% |
The engagement rate for types of Instagram posts:
| Type of Instagram posts | Engagement rate |
|---|---|
| Carousel posts (pics & video) | 3.15% |
| Video posts | 1.5% |
| Photo posts | 1.18% |
| Average for all | 1.94% |
A survey found that 93% of responding marketers in America have plans to use influencer marketing on Instagram. 83% of those want to use stories, and 36% want to use short-form IG Reels.
Instagram Live platform popularity
Instagram is the 3rd most popular platform sharing the spot with Twitter among live social media viewers.
In a GWI Social Video report, they published the results of a survey asking live video viewers which platform they prefer. Here are the results:
Most popular live streaming platforms according to live video viewers survey:
| Live video platforms | Popularity |
|---|---|
| Multiple platforms | 28% |
| 26% | |
| Snapchat | 15% |
| 13% | |
| 13% |
This survey included only live video social media users and not the general population.
Source: PewResearch, SproutSocial, Statista 5, GWI Social Video report
Conclusion
These were the Instagram Live statistics. The data is limited at the moment and we couldn’t find the answers to all of the questions we had. But the conclusion is clear, IG Live is another feature you should use if you plan on getting more followers, but as a 2nd or 3rd tool in your arsenal.
We’ll update the article with future updates to keep it up to date.
What do you think about IG Live? Do you think it will stick like IG Stories and Reels and become a powerful marketing tool or always stay a secondary feature. Let us know in the comments.
Source: Digital 2022 Global Overview, BusinessInsider, Instagram, Meta Earnings Call, GWI Live Streaming report, Livestream, Business Instagram, Statista, Digital 2022: April Global Statshot, Statista 2, Statista 3, GWI Social Flagship report, DataReportal 2022 Instagram, Statista 4, Digital 2022: April Global Statshot, PewResearch, SproutSocial, Statista 5, GWI Social Video report
