Did you know Mastering Instagram in 2025: How Carousels, Reels, and User-Generated Content Shape Engagement

 

The SocialInsider team has released its Instagram Benchmarks 2025 Report, offering key insights and content performance statistics to help businesses optimize their presence on the platform. The first key insight is that Instagram saw a 16% YoY decline in engagement and this is because users have become selective in the content they want to consume. In 2024, the engagement rates were 0.50% for carousels, 0.45% for reels, and 0.40% for single images. This means that if someone wants to stand out on the platform, they have to produce different and high quality content that holds some value in users’ eyes. It is also important that content creator/mangers post reels and stories frequently, reels for the general audience and stories for followers. Users always get attracted towards content that is relatable with some humor, and creativity through user-generated content holds value like no other.

Carousels on Instagram are doing way better than reels and stories, but what's the reason behind it? It's simple; users just love swiping through different slides especially if they are based on tutorials, storytelling and even content that evokes emotions. Carousels are a great way to boost engagement and you can make them interesting by creating carousels in a way that they seem like mini-guides, starting them off with a strong hook that immediately catches the interest of users, wrapping the last slide with urging followers to like, save and comment and creating the content so creative and interesting that people cannot help but save it. Instagram pages of Airbnb and Headspace have great examples of carousels which hook up with the users from start to finish.

The report also found that brands posted 11% more reels in 2024 as compared to last year which means that many brands are prioritizing reels over posting content like single post or carousels. As reels have good reach potential and most users love watching reels, brands love making unique and creative reels to gain followers. Reels aren't really made for followers, they are made to reach a general audience and they can discover the brands. If you want to create an effective reels strategy, it is important to add reels into your weekly posts, and share them at least twice a week. Keep the reels short but make them fun so that users cannot help but stay on them and keep wanting to come back to watch the unique blend of creativity, humor and your brand value. Instagram pages of Sephora and Allbirds have some good examples of reels that are a shadow of their brands.

Another thing that reels attract are comments, especially if the brands have less than 100k followers. On the other hand, brands with more than 100k followers get more comments on images. When you are getting comments on your Instagram post, it means that you have an engaged audience who loves your content and shares feedback about it. To further improve the engagement, it is best to reply to those comments to keep the audience hooked. If you want to get more comments on your posts, always end the content with a question or ask the audience some question in the caption. Keep the content trendy with some humor and try to share some behind the scenes moments too as the audience loves to see what goes beyond the Instagram posts. Ben & Jerry and Glossier’s Instagram pages have some good content that engages the followers and they cannot help but comment.

It was also found that carousels on Instagram get saved the most, especially for large brands. If an account has less than 5k followers, their carousel posts get average 3 saves, while accounts with more than 100k followers get average 134 saves on carousels. Users save carousels because they find them save-worthy, valuable and because they have a good hook, ever-green and interesting like Headspace and National Geographic. The award for highest impression rates goes to reels, with average 30% impressions on accounts with less than 5k followers. Reels also get the highest impressions on accounts with more than 100k followers at 12%. To get more engagements on reels, always make sure to do big announcements through them that hook viewers from the start, use them to create hype around some of your content or big moments and share all the customer stories through them. Check out some reels of nike to gain insights about how to make reels that get more impressions.

Why do small brands get the most impression on reels? It is because Instagram gives some extra visibility boost to them to help small accounts get attention they need. There will be a 13% average view rate on reels from small brand accounts in 2025, as compared to 6.5% reel view rate on large brand accounts. So small businesses should use this advantage from Instagram to show off their brand’s personality by keeping their content simple but authentic, targeting niche audiences and sharing relatable content everyday. Small brands also have the highest potential to increase their Instagram followers and according to the analytics, there will be a 40% average follower growth rate for small brands under 5k followers in 2025. To get more followers, small brands should share unique content, connect with their followers, and team up with like minded influencers or creators.