Every year, Instagram is gaining more and more popularity, and it’s easy to understand why—the nifty, visually-oriented platform provides many options for brands to advertise their products and services.
The carousel upload feature was launched In 2017, allowing users to upload up to ten photos or videos as part of the same post. Ever since, this feature has been quite popular since it enables brands to advertise multiple products or services in one post, master visual storytelling, and build meaningful relationships with target audiences.
These are just a few of the many perks of the carousel ads and posts, but the question at hand is, how can you create engaging Instagram carousels?
Bannersnack.com is a visual production platform. Therefore they cater to the needs of marketers at every given occasion. Over the years, data showed us that the most successful campaigns have something in common—great design. Carousel posts are no exception to the rule. Hence, Bannersnack has mapped the most important design principles, elements, and steps towards creating engaging Instagram carousel posts.
They were also curious to see how popular this feature has become and learn more about what makes people engage with a carousel post from an analytical point of view.
With this in mind, Bannersnack has teamed up the experts at Socialinsider, a social media competitive analytics, benchmarking, and reporting tool for a study conducted on 22,360,021 Instagram posts.
They looked at a high number of posts, published between 2017 and 2020, out of which 2,949,312 were carousels, and here’s what they discovered:
Courtesy of: Bannersnack
The infographic was first published on the Bannersnack blog, as part of “The Ultimate Guide to Creating Engaging Instagram Carousels.”
Looking Into the Carousel Data
- From 2017 to 2020, Instagram carousels rose from 3% to 19.44%.
- Carousel posts get the highest engagement rates of all posts, with an average of 1.92%, compared to 1.74% and 1.45% for single post images and videos, respectively.
- Using more slides has proved to boost the average engagement rate by up to 2%.
- Carousels featuring videos only get more comments, reaching an average of 26 comments per post.
- The highest engagement rates per post (2.33%) were obtained from mixing images and videos in the same post.
How to Design Engaging Instagram Carousels
Sticking to a few basic design principles can make or break your Instagram carousel posts. Here are a few design tips and tricks to ace your next carousel posts:
- Use the AIDA principles, focusing on attention, interest, desire, and action.
- Keep brand consistency in mind and use your signature color palettes, fonts, visual elements, and shapes.
- Writing compelling copy and readable content is essential.
- Choose the right size for your carousel posts.
- Use margins to create proportions.
- Focus on creating a flow that encourages people to swipe.
Final Thoughts
Carousel posts with great design and copy can help brands stand out from the crowd and tell unique visual stories, and the data confirms it.
Plus, with the average attention span getting shorter and shorter, it’s easy to understand why Instagram Carousels are so popular nowadays, as they deliver more information in a shorter time.
Plus, Bannersnack is now supporting the creation of carousel ads and posts, so you can give it a try here, it’s free.
woman holding mobile phone displaying Instagram login -DepositPhotos
