Replies to Instagram Stories rose 65–107% across account sizes in 2026

Engagement

Instagram Stories by account size: replies change — 2026 vs 2025 (%)

Reader Note:: The rise holds at every account size, from about +65% to about +107%. Replies are counted per Story; the study does not say what share of Stories carried a sticker or prompt that invites one.
Evidence:: Observed behaviour
Vendor interest:: Moderate — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
Sample:: 24,364,803 Instagram posts from 375,118 accounts worldwide, covering January and February 2025 and January and February 2026 — a two-month window, not a full year. Accounts with zero publications were excluded, as were posts with zero impressions or zero interactions, so every average in the study is computed over posts that got at least one interaction. Accounts were segmented by follower size into Huge (1M+), Big (100K-1M), Medium (10K-100K), Small (2K-10K) and Tiny (0-2K). Outliers were not removed. Growth has a non-obvious definition: an account counts as having grown only if it crossed into a higher follower tier, so an account that went from 3K to 9K followers is not counted as having grown, and the study's own methodology notes that crossing Tiny to Small takes far fewer new followers than crossing Medium to Big — growth rates are therefore not comparable across tiers.

Good for

Comparing yourself against a similar segment, and choosing what to test next.

Saying that one thing caused another, or predicting what you would get.
This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
This is an aggregated or average number that covers very different cases. Real results in a particular segment may differ.

49%

of WhatsApp users interact with brands on the network multiple times per week

55%

of Gen Z users engage with brand content on TikTok at least once a day

Telecom engagement decreased through 2025, with Industry News leading Instagram at 0.36% and CSR finishing on top on Facebook near 0.16%

Our Substack turns the data behind these cards into full breakdowns: what changed, why, and what to do about it.

1.02%

average Instagram engagement rate for the AI-generated creators CreatorIQ tracked in the first half of 2025

Hospitality engagement decreased on Facebook and stayed stable on Instagram, ending near 0.33% and 0.20% respectively

FMCG food engagement peaked in Q3 on Facebook then decreased sharply, ending near 0.16% against 0.33% on Instagram