Your Guide to Monitoring and Improving Instagram Analytics

There’s a lot happening on Instagram, and it can be difficult to keep track of. With constant changes being introduced on the platform, it’s crucial to make necessary adjustments based on Instagram’s algorithm if you want to get the most of your Instagram marketing. Monitoring Instagram likes and seeing an increase in the number of Instagram followers you have is just the basics. There’s so much more that you can do to keep track of metrics on Instagram so that you can boost business growth. Here’s a guide to all you need to know about monitoring and improving Instagram Analytics.

Importance of monitoring Instagram Analytics

Marketing on Instagram has become increasingly popular due to the massive number of users visiting the content of business accounts daily. Growing your real Instagram followers can help you:

• Promote awareness of your brand
• Establish a strong brand identity
• Increase the reach of your brand
• Build loyalty for your brand among customers
• Experience growth in sales

Instagram Analytics is very important to make sure you’re making the most of your Instagram marketing efforts and that these efforts are producing the desired results. Without monitoring analytics, you may end up wasting your time on strategies and campaigns that aren’t yielding the desired results. You may end up targeting an undesired audience or ignore a mention that could lead to partnerships in the future. You may even be posting too much or too little and your posting may not be at the optimal hours as per your target audience. Monitoring your Instagram Analytics can keep you on track and ensure you’re using these metrics to your advantage.

Instagram metrics you should be tracking

There are several metrics relating to stories, profiles, ads, audience, and individual posts that are important to track. We’ll take you through each category along with the metrics you should be paying attention to.

• Profile metrics

Engagement rate

This is calculated as average across posts as:

(Interactions on posts divided by the total number of Instagram followers or impressions) x 100

This % drops with an increase in the number of Instagram followers you have.

Growth rate of followers

This is calculated by dividing the number of Instagram followers gained by your previous number of Instagram followers and multiplying this number with 100. Although a vanity metric, this gives you crucial information about organic reach.

Impressions

This relates to how many times your posts have been seen during a particular period of time.

Interactions

This shows how many times your posts have been engaged/interacted with based on actions taken by Instagram users.

Profile visits

This shows how many people have viewed your profile over a week.

Reach

This shows how many unique accounts your posts have been seen by.

Mentions

Mentions show how many times other users have mentioned your account handle.

Website clicks

You can also track how many people have visited your website as a result of seeing the link on Instagram. Certain tools allow you to use UTM parameters in the links you add on Instagram, making it possible for you to keep a track of a number of website visits from Instagram, regardless of whether it’s from the link in bio, an influencer reference, message to a friend, or a link that’s been copy-pasted to a browser.

Clicks for calls/email

This shows you details about how many times users have clicked on the email or call button directly from your Instagram account.

• Audience metrics

Audience metrics helps you get to know whether or not you’re targeting the group you had planned to target while also giving you important details about the demographic breakdown of your audience.

Age group

This helps you keep track of the age group of your Instagram followers and get an idea of which age group is your biggest audience so that you can tailor your content as per the age group of your audience. Instagram Insights breaks this down into the ranges:

• 13-17
• 18-24
• 25-34
• 35-44
• 45-54
• 55-64
• 65+

Gender

What is the gender of your audience? Who is engaging with your content the most? Details about the gender of your audience can help you create content keeping the needs of that specific demographic in mind.

Location

Seeing the top locations where majority of your Instagram followers are will provide you with useful information about the time zones operating in the different regions and help you post keeping these different time zones in mind.

Instagram follower hours and days

This metric provides you with details about the hours of the day as well as days of the week when your Instagram followers are most active so that you can ensure you schedule your posts at the right time to get maximum visibility and reach. Posting at the right time is very important if you want to see a growth in engagement on your posts and make your posts appear on the Explore tab on Instagram.

You can also use some tools to check the number of tags generated by your audience on your branded hashtags so that you’re able to build a community for your brand and boost business growth.

• Metrics for individual posts

Checking the metrics for individual posts on your profile will help you get an idea of the kind of messages that your audience is resonating with. Here’s what you need to pay attention to when it comes to metrics for individual posts:

Interactions

This relates to actions taken as a result of your post whether in the form of a profile visit, checking a hyperlink, or clicking on the call/email button.

Discovery

This helps you find content from accounts you aren’t following while also helping others find your content even if they aren’t already one of your Instagram followers.

Reach

This can tell you how many unique accounts were reached by a post.

Follows

This will inform you of how many new Instagram followers you got after making a particular post.

Impressions

This shows how many times your post is viewed along with a breakdown of where it is viewed on Instagram, whether from the home page, through hashtags, via your profile, or other locations on the platform.

Comments

This shows how many comments your post receives.

Saves

This shows how many accounts have saved a particular post of yours to their personal saved folder.
You can calculate the engagement rate on your posts with:

Post interactions ÷ total follower count (or impressions) ✕ 100.

• Stories metrics

Stories are a great way to connect with your Instagram followers and help you reach a wider audience of users on the platform. Monitoring metrics for your Stories can help you make changes to it so that you receive maximum engagement from your Instagram Stories. The metrics to track for Stories include:

Impressions

This relates to how many times your story is viewed.

Reach

This shows how many unique accounts saw your story.

Replies

This shows how many replies a particular story of yours got.

People insights

This shows how many people have seen a component of your Instagram story.

Engagement on stories is measured using:

Total actions ÷ Total reach X 100

Navigational actions

This information can help you understand what your audience likes and doesn’t like. Pay attention to the following on your Instagram Stories:

• Back – how many people watched it again
• Forward – how many people skipped it
• Next – how many people skipped your story
• Exit – how many people left your story mid-way through

• Metrics for Instagram ads

Click-through rate

This shows how effective an ad is and whether or not your call to action was compelling. This is derived by dividing the number of clicks received by an ad by number of impressions for your ad and multiplying this by 100 to get a percentage.

Conversions

This can give you crucial details of whether or not your ad resulted in a conversion.

Different data serves different goals

Different metrics can provide you with information that helps to further different business goals. You need to decide what your goal is from the platform before focusing on a particular metric as the importance of these may differ according to your specific business goals.

Boosting brand awareness

If your goal is to experience growth of your brand and create brand awareness among consumers, pay attention to:

• Follower count
• Impressions
• Reach

Lead generation

For lead generation, the following metrics need to be monitored:

• Website clicks
• Follower hours and days
• Clicks on email/call option

Community building

If your goal is to build a community of loyal Instagram followers, pay attention to:

• Comments
• Replies to Stories
• Engagement – on ads, profile, posts, and stories

Some ways that you can improve these metrics are by:

• Creating engaging content
• Asking questions to your audience
• Writing great captions
• Posting high quality pictures and videos
• Using the right hashtags
• Using location tags
• Running contests

Optimizing your content for Instagram’s search engine will help you appear on the Explore tab of users and boost business growth.

Instagram Analytics Tools

Besides using Instagram Insights, you can also use other tools to track important metrics for your Instagram account. These are:

• Hootsuite
• Squarelovin
• Iconosquare
• Sprout Social
• Keyhole
• Union Metrics
• HypeAuditor

Conclusion

With just a little learning, you can uncover the world of Instagram and use the data generated by Instagram Analytics to effectively plan your marketing campaign.

Do you need an Instagram expert to complete an in-depth evaluation of your Instagram account & provide you with an action plan?

We provide an expert Instagram Optimization & Hashtags Research service

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