Over the last few years, Instagram has gone through many changes. One of the significant changes includes the introduction of Instagram Insights, which allows users to view analytics measuring the performance of their content, understand their audience, and adjust their marketing efforts. This blog will outline everything you need to know about Instagram analytics and insights, how to access them, how to use them, and the best metrics to keep your eye on.
Instagram analytics lets you understand how your posts and account perform. You can access analytics about your account and posts through Instagram’s free native tool, and Instagram Insights, which can help you analyze your audience’s demographic, behaviors, and interaction patterns.
Tracking your Instagram analytics is one of the best ways to identify which types of posts elicit the most engagement and make informed adjustments to your content strategy.
Instagram Insights allows businesses and content creators to see engagement analytics related to their posts, profile, and followers. If you use a personal account, you can easily switch to a business or creator account from your phone by changing your Instagram settings.
With Instagram post insights, business owners have access to a variety of data, such as:
For example, Instagram Insights can help business owners determine when to post and which types of content to post, such as infographics, reviews, or user-generated content. Consequently, the tool can help marketing and social media officers create a more effective Instagram strategy and maximize their marketing efforts.
Viewing your insights on Instagram is quite simple. However, note that this option is currently only available for smartphone users. Therefore, if you are using Instagram on your desktop, consider installing the app on your mobile device to view your insights.
Once you have logged into Instagram on your phone, follow these steps to access insights and analytics about your account:
You can get more data by tapping on ‘accounts reached,’ ‘accounts engaged,’ and ‘total followers.’
As stated previously, Instagram posts insights allow users to access the following analytics: accounts reached, accounts engaged, and total followers. So, let’s break each section down.
Accounts reached shows you the number of users who have seen your content, along with some demographic information. The primary metrics are:
Accounts engaged highlights the number of accounts that interacted with your content and some demographic information on them. The primary metrics are:
Total followers reveal the total number of users who follow your account, along with some demographic information. The primary metrics are:
These insights can help you understand the overall performance of your Instagram marketing strategy and help you reach your target audience and demographics.
To improve your content strategy, you need to keep an eye out for your metrics, such as your engagement rate or website clicks. Depending on your goals, this tracking will help you understand what is working for you, what is not, and what areas need improvement and changes. With that said, here are the top five metrics to track on Instagram:
Your follower count may be a simple metric to track, yet essential to measure the health of your account. Monitoring this metric can help you understand the number of followers you have gained over the past weeks or months and how fast your follower base is growing.
It is also essential to track the number of followers you may have lost and what you can do to avoid such cases. The more followers you have, the more people will engage with your content, increasing the chances of clicking on your website and making a purchase.
However, follower growth is not included in Instagram Insights. Instead, it shows how many followers you have gained or lost compared to the previous week. As a result, you must manually record your follower count and calculate the percent change yourself, as Instagram doesn’t have analytics on follower growth over time.
While it’s essential to know how fast you gain followers, you must also understand who they are to create a successful marketing strategy. Grasping your audience demographics will let you know if you are reaching your target audience and creating content that interests them.
For instance, Instagram Insights offer accurate analytics about audience composition by gender, age, city, and country. If your metrics show that your demographic differs from your target audience, you may want to reconsider your content strategy and think of ways to make your content more appealing to the people you want to reach. For example, you can implement attraction marketing by posting valuable and high-quality content about your product or service. The goal is to attract your followers to make a purchase by simply showing how desirable your product or service is.
Instagram website clicks show the number of people who clicked on your website from your Instagram profile. If your goal for using Instagram posts includes driving traffic, conversions, or sales to your website, then you should be looking at analytics on website clicks regularly.
If you use Instagram as a sales or traffic channel, you may consider adding a powerful and creative call-to-action in your bio. If you already have one but are not getting a lot of web clicks, consider changing it and using a strong command verb. You can also direct people to your website by adding the URL to your latest story or writing ‘Link in bio’ at the end of your post’s caption.
Reach on Instagram is a metric that lets you know how many people have seen your posts. Each account that viewed your photo, video, reel, or story counts as one account reached. Nonetheless, reach is often confused with impressions on Instagram. So, let’s set things clear. As stated in the beginning, reach is counted once per user. Whereas impressions are counted every time a user views your content. As a result, you may have more impressions than reach. However, measuring how many people have seen your content instead of how many times is a more accurate measurement for brand awareness. As a result, reach can help you determine which of your posts are showing up in people’s feeds.
In addition, tracking your reach will let you know if your content was well-timed, popular, and engaging. As a result, if your posts reach a large number of followers, that may be a sign that your posting schedule is accurate and people are engaging with them. On the other hand, if you notice your average post reach is decreasing, consider checking when your followers are online and adjusting your posting schedule accordingly.
To measure the success of your content strategy on Instagram, you need to track your engagement rate. Engagement is the total number of likes, comments, shares, and saves on a post. Consequently, if your engagement rate is high, you may be on the right track in connecting with fans and prospects and building communities.
Additionally, the Instagram algorithm rewards posts that receive positive engagement. It gives priority to posts that people find the most engaging and shows them at the top of recommended feeds to receive additional attention. In case you notice a sudden decrease in your engagement rate there is a chance that your account is shadowbanned.
However, Instagram Insights doesn’t automatically measure your engagement rate. You must calculate it yourself instead or utilize additional social media management tools. If you want to calculate the rate yourself, divide a post’s total number of engagements by its total reach. Then multiply by 100 to give a percentage. For example, if your latest post gets 200 engagements and 2,000 reaches, your engagement rate is 10%.
Some people may argue that tracking your metrics on Instagram post insights may not be enough to provide you with the analytics you need to improve your content strategy. Consider weighing its pros and cons to assess whether it is good enough for your business.
Pros of Instagram Insights:
Cons of Instagram Insights:
Instagram Insights is a free tool that helps you access data on your content without leaving the app. These insights will help you learn more about your audience, such as when they are most active, their demographics, and what content engages them. Then, you can leverage this information to detect areas that may need improvement to achieve your goals.
Fill out the form below to get in touch with one of our marketing specialists.