July 2022 was the last month when there was a distinction between Video posts and Reels.
Since August, all new video posts under 15 minutes will be shared as reels. All video posts also have access to Reels creative editing tools, to help make your videos more fun and engaging.
HypeAuditor analyzed 77.6 million Instagram posts to see how different types of content perform on Instagram.
Results of the content type popularity analysis
Among the different content types analyzed in July, Image posts emerged as the most popular, comprising 42.2% of the total posts. Images have long been a staple of Instagram and continue to dominate users' feeds.
Carousel is in second place with 26.2% of posts. This format allows users to swipe through multiple images or videos in a single post, providing a more immersive experience.
Surprisingly, Reels secured the third position with 22.1%. Although relatively new compared to Images and Carousels, Reels have gained substantial traction among Instagram influencers.
Despite being the third most popular content type, Reels emerged as the leader in terms of received Likes, capturing 35.4% of total likes. This indicates that Reels have a higher engagement rate compared to other content formats.
Moreover, Reels achieved an estimated reach of 33.8%, surpassing both Image and Carousel posts. The higher reach and engagement potential of Reels suggest that Instagram has prioritized this format, incentivizing influencers to leverage it for wider exposure.
Interestingly, that only 5.7M influencers posted Reels in July, which is only 41% of the total number of analyzed influencers.
It turns out that 59% did not take advantage of this opportunity, even though Reels gave more reach and engagement.
Methodology
To conduct this research, we analyzed 77.6 million posts from our internal database, made by 13.6M global Instagram influencers in July 2022.
Estimated reach refers to the approximate number of people who viewed a post by a specific influencer.
