Instagram Stories get viewed by one-third of its 300-million-large daily audience, ignored by rest

Every day, more than 100 million people view Instagram Stories, according to an Instagram spokesperson, who clarified that the 100-million-user mark reported by BuzzFeed on Thursday specifically referred to the number of people viewing Stories.

A daily audience of more than 100 million people is huge for anything. When it comes to TV, only events like the Super Bowl get those kinds of numbers. And when it comes to Instagram’s burgeoning rivalry with Snapchat — from whom it copied the Stories feature — it means that Instagram’s two-month-old version already has two-thirds the audience that Snapchat, in general, attracts every day.

But there’s a but.

As large a number as 100 million is, it represents a one-third minority of the 300 million people that check Instagram every day. In other words, two-thirds of Instagram’s daily audience swipe past the Stories sitting conspicuously atop their main feeds.

Instagram’s Stories feed appears prominently atop the app’s main feed.

There are any number of reasons not to write off Instagram Stories yet: 1) Instagram is owned by Facebook, which has a direct line to 1.13 billion people every day; 2) Instagram alone has a direct line to 300 million people every day; 3) Instagram has been able to get people to watch more and more videos in its app despite remaining a not-great place to watch videos; and 4) 100 million viewers. Daily. In two months.

But considering the prominent placement that Instagram has given Stories atop its app’s home screen, it can’t be overlooked that, for the majority of Instagram’s daily audience, so far Stories has been overlooked, if not ignored.

About The Author

Tim Peterson

Tim Peterson, Third Door Media’s Social Media Reporter, has been covering the digital marketing industry since 2011. He has reported for Advertising Age, Adweek and Direct Marketing News. A born-and-raised Angeleno who graduated from New York University, he currently lives in Los Angeles. He has broken stories on Snapchat’s ad plans, Hulu founding CEO Jason Kilar’s attempt to take on YouTube and the assemblage of Amazon’s ad-tech stack; analyzed YouTube’s programming strategy, Facebook’s ad-tech ambitions and ad blocking’s rise; and documented digital video’s biggest annual event VidCon, BuzzFeed’s branded video production process and Snapchat Discover’s ad load six months after launch. He has also developed tools to monitor brands’ early adoption of live-streaming apps, compare Yahoo’s and Google’s search designs and examine the NFL’s YouTube and Facebook video strategies.