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As creators, consumers, and marketers in the age of Instagram, we know that being strategic with the ever-popular platform is key to influencing the masses (and the niches).
Admittedly, the task of persuading a group of Instagram users is no easy feat. With Instagram’s Insights tool coming off as complicated and confusing, many users give up on understanding how to make full use of the insights available for their Instagram business account.
In this post, you’ll have Instagram Insights explained so you can make the most of this analytics tool and receive the post insights you need to take your content to the next level.
Understanding Instagram Insights will help you effectively strategize your social media content for present and future campaign initiatives. Trust us—it’s worth it.
We’ll spare you the stress of trying to navigate Instagram analytics tools and keep it simple with an inside look at the platform’s Insight Toolkit.
How Do You Access Instagram Insights?
Before you have Instagram Insights explained, you need to know where to look for them. While using the Instagram app, go to your account profile. Here, you’ll find a menu that provides a summary of your metrics, as well as the option to tap on different screens with more detailed breakdowns.
After tapping on a link for the specific metrics you want to look at, you can also tap on the top right corner for more detailed explanations of what they are and what they mean. A drop-down menu will allow you to look at insights over the last 90 days or to set your own custom time period.
While the Recent Highlights section can help you get a general idea of how your account is doing overall, the following sections will help you truly understand your account performance. However, these sections are also where things get complicated and where you’ll need Instagram Insights explained.
The Overview
Under the Insights Tab on your Instagram Business profile, the bulkiest section is the Overview section.
The Overview is where all business account users can find their Account Reach. According to Instagram, this section “showcases the number of accounts reached, accounts engaged, total followers, and approximate earnings (if applicable) for your selected preset or custom timeframe within the past 90 days. Aggregated demographic data is based on a number of factors, including information users provide in their Facebook and Instagram profiles.”
In other words, this is where you can discover the general “worth” of what you are posting. The metrics used to calculate your reach include:
- Profile visits
- Website clicks
- Get direction taps
- Call button taps
- Email button taps
- Text button taps
Tracking this section of your Instagram Insights is crucial for monitoring the overall effectiveness of your Instagram marketing strategy and follower-growth spectrum. If your objective is brand or influencer awareness, changes in your reach (which reveal the total number of people who saw your posts) are the tell-tale sign of how your content is doing.
TIP: Don’t confuse impressions with reach. Impressions are the amount of times a piece of content has the potential to be viewed, rather than the number of unique accounts that viewed the content one time (reach). According to Sprout Social, monitoring posts with a high “impressions-to-reach ratio” is a great way to see if your content strategy is performing well. Posts with a higher impression-to-reach ratio mean that your audience members are likely looking at them multiple times and engaging more with your content.
The second section of the Overview tab is your Content Interactions. Essentially, these analytics monitor your Post, Story, and IGTV interactivity data. These are characterized by the following key metrics:
- Number of Likes
- Number of Comments
- Total Saves
- Total Shares
- Replies (Stories)
- Shares (Stories)
By keeping track of these metrics, you can come to understand what type of content resonates with your followers and what doesn’t. Be especially mindful of how many saves your posts receive. If this number is high, it’s an indicator that you’re providing value or inspiration to your followers because they want to view that post repeatedly.
TIP: When formulating content to generate interactions, consider your overall growth and marketing goals. Ask yourself:
- Does this post inspire our followers?
- Does it teach our followers something or provide a relevant tip?
- Would I, as a social media user myself, want to share this?
- Will this post lead to conversions?
The Audience
The second part of understanding your Instagram Insights report is looking at your follower breakdown. Within this analysis, you can view overall account growth (follows and unfollows), as well as audience demographic information. Keep in mind, however, that you need to have at least 100 followers to gain access to this data.
The metrics that make up the demographic section of your Audience Insights are:
- Top Location
- Age Range
- Gender
- Most Active Times
Most Active Times is a graph that illustrates when your followers are most active on Instagram (whether it be the time of day or days of the week).
Although monitoring profile growth is pivotal for determining whether your content strategy helps or hinders your brand awareness, your demographic analytics are key to helping social media managers understand exactly who they’re communicating with.
With detailed follower information, you can craft content that’s designed to gain new followers within your target market and get repeat interactions from your current followers. Everything you need to know—including interests and behavioral insights—is available in this section.
Even something as simple as knowing when your audience is most active online can help your content reach a greater number of users.
TIP: Once you’ve viewed your Audience Insights, combine what you learned from looking at your Overview Insights with your follower findings. Tweak your strategy to fit your audience demographics. By posting the right messages at the right times, you can increase your Instagram account’s engagement rate on each individual post.
Content You Shared
In the last tab of your Instagram Insights, you will find information regarding the content you’ve shared on the platform during the last 90 days. Whether it’s a Post, Story, or IGTV video, this Instagram tool lets you organize your posts by content matter (photos, videos, etc.), reach, interactions (likes, comments, and shares), and time frame.
This section of your Instagram Insights is the easiest way to view insights on individual posts so you can see what worked and what didn’t. Reviewing the performance of your posts, stories, and IGTV videos with this tool will make you aware of successful content that appealed to your audience. It’s important to monitor this post-by-post and keep tabs on the trends and topics that followers appear to enjoy.
Content that leads followers to take a greater number of actions will naturally have greater reach and higher conversions. Something as simple as the right hashtags could help a post reach more potential new followers. Or, you might discover that your audience engages with Instagram Stories much more than standard posts.
TIP: After reviewing your profile’s Content You Shared tab, take note of which content and copy were popular. What marketing tactics did that post or story use? Was it a giveaway? A reply post about current events? Whatever it is, implement more of it into your future content. As you continue to optimize your content, your engagement and reach will continue to go up.
With Instagram Insights Explained, It’s Time to Use Them
If you don’t have Instagram Insights explained, those chunks of data may initially seem more beautiful than useful. However, by taking the time to understand what your data means and then using it to refine your content strategy, you can get much better engagement from both current and new followers.
Regardless of your marketing objectives, understanding Instagram Insights—and using them—is the first step toward long-term social media marketing success.
Achieve social media success even faster with Markerly. With integrated campaign management—including influencer marketing—our team will help you use Instagram insights to create amazing content that delivers on your social media goals. Contact us today to learn more about how we can take your Instagram marketing to the next level.
