Metricool, a global social media management platform, and HypeAuditor, the end-to-end influencer marketing suite, today unveiled the 2025 Instagram Content Playbook, a benchmark study that analyzes 700 million Instagram posts across 28 million influencer accounts. The study offers social media managers, creators, brands, and agencies key content performance trends, including how posts perform by number of followers, revealing which formats drive reach vs. engagement, the most effective publishing cadence, and the best global times and days to post.
Key findings:
- Influencer advantage. Influencer posts generate approximately 3 times more likes and comments than brand accounts. Authentic storytelling plus audience fit remain decisive.
- Reels drive discovery at every size. Reels lead in reach across follower tiers, making them the most effective path to new audiences. Carousels increasingly win on likes and comments as accounts with at least 500,000 followers grow.
- Consistency equals growth. Posting 2-3 times weekly will drive on average 19% growth, while 10+ posts per week will most likely boost it by 79%.
- Prime posting window is 8 p.m. local-time. Top days are Wednesday and Friday.
Based on the results, social media users should plan a balanced mix in their social media strategies. This includes using Reels to expand reach, carousels to deepen engagement, and engaging visuals to reinforce brand tone and commit to a sustainable posting cadence (several times a week) by using a scheduling tool to avoid burnout. Test boldly with Trial Reels to refine hooks and formats before broader promotion, and prioritize partnerships with creators whose audiences mirror your targeted audience, and track outcomes beyond raw reach to what actually moves the business.
“Creators and brands have been flying blind without reliable benchmarks,” said Juan Pablo Tejela, CEO & Co-Founder of Metricool. “Our collaboration with HyperAuditor for this playbook replaces guesswork with practical, tier-specific benchmarks so teams can plan confidently, schedule consistently, and measure what data-driven decisions actually look like.”
“Influencer content is now a primary growth engine for brands,” said Alex Frolov, CEO & Co-Founder of HypeAuditor. “Our joint dataset shows exactly when to use Reels for discovery, when carousels outperform for deeper interaction, and how a simple increase in posting frequency compounds into real audience growth.”
The full report is now available at https://metricool.com/instagram-content-playbook-2025/.
Methodology
Findings are based on 700 million posts from 28 million Instagram influencer accounts between January and June 2025. Metrics are reported using medians to avoid distortion from viral outliers and are segmented into six follower tiers (0–1K; 1K–10K; 10K–50K; 50K–500K; 500K–1M; 1M+).
Metricool
Metricool is a global social media and online ad management platform that serves more than 2 million professionals, agencies, and brands in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Spain, France, Germany, and Latin America. They help social media managers simplify tasks, automate processes, and unify tools to plan and execute successful campaigns. Metricool is a trusted partner of global brands including Louis Vuitton, David Guetta, Adidas, H&M, Costco, etc.
HypeAuditor
HypeAuditor is an AI-powered influencer marketing analytics platform trusted by top brands and agencies worldwide. They provide deep insights into over 200M social media creators across Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and more — helping marketers discover the right influencers, track campaigns, and measure ROI with complete transparency.