Instagram AI Study 2023: Swiss Business Accounts
The Best Swiss Business Accounts and What They Do Differently
For years, we have been collecting data from more than 200 well-known Swiss organisations on Instagram and analysing it.
This year, our analysis introduces a first thanks to AI: We looked at the best and worst 15 accounts (by engagement rate). We classified more than 3,000 image posts from these accounts according to various aspects, drew learnings, and trained AI models. OpenAI's API supported us in this. Thanks to AI, more insights!
This study has 4 parts:
Foundations
General Findings
Ranking of the Best Accounts and Posts
AI Image Analysis of Top and Flop Accounts
Would you like to know how your Instagram account compares to your benchmarks? When and what you should post best? Which images are best received?
Missing your company in the report?
We track 200+ Swiss companies on Instagram. If you are not yet included, just give us your Instagram URL and we will notify you when we make a report with your company:
Key Takeaways
Focusing on engagement leads to above-average growth.
For more engagement, photos are more important than Reels. Indirectly announced by Instagram for 2024: Carousels are to be pushed more again.
However, if one wants to grow faster, one should publish more Reels. Even with a growth-Reel strategy, an engagement of at least 7% should be aimed for.
It's noticeable that engagement accounts post more throughout the day, especially early in the morning.
In any case, one should post less. Two good posts per week are better than 3-4 bad ones. Between the lines, Instagram recommends 3 posts per week.
For more engagement, it's advisable to use posts with individual people, events, and sports. One should avoid products, too much text, and advertisement-like content. Especially, corporate design elements usually smell of advertising and should be avoided.
The production of images should be rather medium to simple and not highly stylised. Emotionality, colours, and strong stylistic devices are essential. Close-ups, eye-level, POV work best. The focus of quality should aim at storytelling and not on formal quality.
Foundation
What did we analyse?
We focused on brands/organisations with a focus on Switzerland. Internationally oriented Swiss brands like Rolex or Nestlé were not included.
202 Instagram accounts over the period from 1 January to 31 December 2023.
In detail, we looked at the 15 fastest-growing accounts (we call them "Growth resp. Growth Accounts") and the 15 accounts with the most engagement ("Engagers").
We analysed 19.5 million interactions from 4.8 million followers on 28,621 posts. With AI, we also analysed 3,000 photos for content.
Swiss Instagram accounts had an average of 24,052 followers at the end of the year and grew by 15.7% last year.
On average, the accounts had a post interaction rate (engagement rate) of 2.12%.
They posted an average of 2.7 posts per week. Of these, 38% were Reels, 35% images, and 27% Carousels.
What did we NOT analyse?
To make accurate statements, outliers with extreme values must be excluded.
Physiobasel grew last year from originally 2,873 to 113,860 followers. About 51% of the followers are from Germany, Brazil, India, Indonesia, the USA, Italy, Iran, etc.), and just 3.72% from Switzerland. Even though the videos are in German.
Accounts under 1,000 followers were excluded from the ranking. In this range, smaller growth and engagement values have too strong an effect.
Key Learnings
2023: the Renaissance of Images
In previous years, Instagram had pushed Reels. Last year's announcement to promote images again has come true. Accounts with the most engagement focused on photos. Besides a lot of engagement, there was even respectable growth. Notably: Successful accounts post less. Quality over quantity - not in production, but in storytelling.
Successful accounts post less
Successful profiles post almost half as much, but do not differ from the engagement-poor profiles in terms of posting days. Monday and Thursday seem to be popular.
Successful accounts post more in the morning
Successful profiles clearly post more in the morning. Friday seems to be an important day.
The Ranking
Top15 Growth Accounts (relative)
The fastest-growing Instagram accounts in 2023 had
approximately 13,318 followers and grew by 80.1%
On average, the engagement rate was 7.2%
They published below average, namely 2.3 posts per week
Of these, slightly fewer Reels (36%), a similar number of pictures (35%), and slightly more Carousels (29%) than the average. Our general recommendation for 2023 was: More pictures (for engagement) and Reels (for growth).
The Top Growth Accounts:
| Account | Growth rel. | Follower | Growth abs. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. UBS Kids Cup | 147.3% | 10,596 | 6,311 |
| 2. Fleurop-Interflora Schweiz | 121.7% | 7,297 | 4,006 |
| 3. Knorr Schweiz | 105.4% | 4,754 | 2,439 |
| 4. Dipl. Ing. Fust | 92.9% | 9,286 | 4,473 |
| 5. neon | 89.7% | 6,549 | 3,096 |
| 6. M-Budget | 82.9% | 31,407 | 14,237 |
| 7. Ricola Schweiz | 79.2% | 9,983 | 4,412 |
| 8. SIGG Switzerland Bottles AG | 76.1% | 17,923 | 7,746 |
| 9. PKZ MEN&WOMEN | 75.6% | 41,874 | 18,027 |
| 10. melectronics | 75.4% | 12,423 | 5,339 |
| 11. Zweifel Chips | 75.3% | 18,471 | 7,932 |
| 12. Shoppyland Schönbühl | 73.5% | 3,814 | 1,616 |
| 13. BRACK.CH | 61.1% | 18,203 | 6,903 |
| 14. MastercardCH | 58.5% | 2,720 | 1,004 |
| 15. Pro Juventute Elternwelt | 57.3% | 4,464 | 1,626 |
Top15 Engaging Accounts
The accounts with the best engagement rates were different.
On average, they had 6,141 followers and grew by 41%
The engagement rate here was on average 10.4% (5.5%*)
These accounts posted even less, namely 2.2 posts per week (1.6**).
They posted 25% Reels (34%), 52% pictures (39%), and 23% Carousels (27%**). Reels usually receive fewer interactions because users just watch them. For the reach/virality of Reels, interactions are not relevant.
(*) Excluding UBS Kids Cup with a growth of 78% (**) Excluding welovesnow, which made almost 10 posts per week.
The Top Engager 2023:
| Account | Engagement Rate | Follower |
|---|---|---|
| 1. UBS Kids Cup | 78.11% | 10,596 |
| 2. welovesnow.ch | 8.98% | 15,608 |
| 3. ceylor | 8.44% | 1,831 |
| 4. Säntispark Freizeit | 8.04% | 5,223 |
| 5. login Berufsbildung AG | 7.41% | 4,465 |
| 6. hässig ODP GmbH | 7.18% | 20,249 |
| 7. Durgol Schweiz | 5.95% | 1,914 |
| 8. MONTANA SPORT STYLE | 5.35% | 1,320 |
| 9. Fleurop-Interflora Schweiz | 4.35% | 7,297 |
| 10. Berner Kantonalbank | 4.05% | 2,632 |
| 11. ELMER Citro | 3.79% | 2,203 |
| 12. ASTAG Schweizer Nutzfahrzeugverband | 3.74% | 2,255 |
| 13. Shoppyland Schönbühl | 3.49% | 3,814 |
| 14. MastercardCH | 3.32% | 2,720 |
| 15. Ricola Schweiz | 3.16% | 9,983 |
Another special note for Radio Energy: Last year, they managed to collect almost as many interactions as all other accounts combined: 10.7 million comments, likes, and shares. Congrats.
Missing your company in the report?
We track 200+ Swiss companies on Instagram. If you are not yet included, just give us your Instagram URL and we will notify you when we make a report with your company:
Content is King! The most successful posts
We're aware that for Reels, engagement isn't as crucial as view time and the resulting virality, which are more important than likes and comments. We can't measure view time and views from the outside for Reels. For image posts, it's noticeable that competitions often generate high engagement and, depending on the case, more or less sustainable followers. The sustainability of this needs separate analysis.
The most successful carousels, images, and Reels (by engagement):
AI Content Analysis: What do successful accounts do differently?
We looked at all the image and carousel posts of the 15 most successful and 15 least successful Swiss Instagram accounts - about 3000 images in total. Successful in terms of high engagement/interaction rates. The image analysis of the OpenAI API (ChatGPT 4 Vision Preview) provided us with strong support. This is how you can imagine it:
We didn't just analyze what the top/bottom profiles post, but also, independent of the accounts, which images are generally the most successful.
It’s all about people
Successful accounts post more people:
Visuell emotional, farbenfroh, vintage generieren Engagement
Average quality is important
Unabhängig von den Accounts – über alle Bilder hinweg sind die nicht zu perfekten am erfolgreichsten:
Communicate at eye level and close
Across all images, fisheye view images generate the highest engagement. POV should also not be underestimated.
Join our Webinar
In our webinar, we will present the results and learnings from this report on a deeper level, to help your brand perform better on Instagram. There will also be some behind the scenes on how we used AI for this analysis. Finally, we are going to answer all of your questions.
Want to get better with data?
We would be happy to analyze your e-commerce data, campaigns, or social media presence and that of your competitors. With the help of machine learning and AI, we take it to the next level - beyond traditional reports.
