When Instagram first came into play, everyone used it for communication and fun. However, now Instagram is the best way to build a business and grow a brand and, I am pretty sure most users are normal users like you and me. Then, you might wonder how they became so successful. That only happens when you take good care of your Instagram metrics.
Instagram metrics are a way to measure all your activities on the platform, using data points that provide insight into your account’s performance. Both brands and digital creators on Instagram need to understand these metrics to ensure everything runs smoothly.
So, what are Instagram metrics, and how can you measure them to track everything on your account? That’s what we’re going to discuss in this blog, in a very specific way, leaving you with no questions in the end.
Now let’s get to the point. Shall we?
What Are Instagram Metrics?
Apart from Instagram, every social media platform uses two key elements to measure engagement and refine its marketing strategies. By addressing weak points, they can maximize their marketing efforts.
Now, the first question that comes to mind is what Instagram metrics are and how they can benefit your account in the first place.
As you already know, Instagram impressions and insights matter a lot when you check your Instagram performance. However, other things matter just as much. Essentially, Instagram metrics are data points that provide insights into everything done on your account.
Metrics provide information about your followers, your posts, and the impact of your Instagram marketing. Specifically, they include comments, likes, follower count, and engagement rate.
Overall, Instagram metrics are important because they show whether your marketing efforts are working or not. By tracking your metrics, you can conclude your Instagram marketing strategies and plan your next steps to achieve your marketing goals.
Why Are Instagram Metrics so Important?
Instagram metrics are important because they show how your audience interacts with your content. By tracking these numbers, you can see what your followers enjoy and adjust your strategy to follow trends. However, let’s take a closer look at the importance of Instagram metrics.
- Audience Insights with Instagram Analytics: Instagram analytics help you understand how your audience responds to your brand’s messages. It essentially shows how they value your content on Instagram. By tracking your metrics, you can learn about their interactions and whether they value your content enough to share, like, and save it.
- Using Metrics to Follow Trends: Measuring your Instagram metrics keeps you informed about content trends and lets you adjust your strategy. Adapting to these trends keeps your followers engaged and increases both brand awareness and sales.
- Enhancing Strategy with Top Post Insights: By analyzing key Instagram metrics like top posts, you can identify what content your audiences like the most. This helps you upgrade your strategy, create engaging content, and increase brand awareness, leads, and sales.
How to Check Your Instagram Metrics?
While it might seem hard to check your Instagram metrics, it can be done with just a few clicks. Simply go to the Insights feature within your Instagram app.
Here is how to do it step by step:
- Open your Instagram app and go to your profile.
- Tap the three lines in the top right corner.
- From the menu that appears, select “Insights.”
This is how you can view your overall account metrics, including your follower count and how many people have seen your posts and reels within a specific time. You can also see their likes, comments, shares, and saves. This is the best way to analyze your activities on Instagram.
Note: Checking your Instagram insights is only available if you have a business or public account, so don’t try to find it if your account is private because it won’t be there.
10 Most Important Instagram Metrics to Track
So far, we’ve provided a brief summary of Instagram metrics and their impact on your marketing campaigns. Once you understand these metrics and how to track them, you’ll become an expert in Instagram marketing metrics. Now, let’s talk about Instagram metrics to track.
1. Instagram Impressions
The first and most important metric everyone knows about on Instagram is impressions. Since they’re widely recognized for their value, it’s essential to start by measuring your impressions.
When you post content on Instagram, you need to check the total number of views. That’s what impressions represent, they include repeated views from the same user on a single piece of content. Let’s keep it short and clean. If a user views your post three times, that counts as three impressions for you.
Keep in mind, if you want to boost your reach and total impressions, using trending hashtags along with your content can be highly effective. They enhance your visibility by making your content more discoverable when users search for those specific tags.
2. Growth Rate of Followers
Another important metric to track is your follower growth rate. As you already know, a high Instagram follower count builds your brand credibility, which means people are naturally attracted to accounts with a large number of followers.
On the other hand, the Follower Growth Rate indicates whether your client’s business is reaching more people and attracting new followers. If gaining 1K followers in 5 minutes is your goal, the growth rate of followers requires careful attention and strategy.
To keep it simple, when evaluating follower performance, focus on how your follower count changes and the total number of followers. For example, if you gained 50 new followers this month and started with 500, that’s a 10% growth rate, which is excellent.
This Instagram follower metric suggests that your marketing efforts are or aren’t improving, so it might be time to try a new approach and make new plans.
3. Instagram Reach
Counting reach on Instagram means tracking the number of your followers who have viewed your stories, posts, and reels. As one of the most important Instagram metrics, it shows how far and wide your content is spreading on the Instagram Explore page.
The more people you reach, the more chances you have to gain new followers and get your message out there. However, impressions are different from reach. While reach tells you how many people saw your content, impressions count how many times your content was viewed in total. For instance, if one person views your post five times, Instagram counts that as five impressions.
Nevertheless, each user is counted only once in reach. That’s why Instagram reach is a more important measure of how many people have seen your content.
4. Instagram Saves
Saving your content is a key metric in Instagram marketing. Some marketers view it as even more valuable than likes, as the more your content is saved, the greater its reach and visibility.
When people save your content, they’re showing how much they genuinely appreciate your posts and reels, finding them both entertaining and useful. Tracking the number of saves gives you valuable insights into which content resonates most with your audience, helping you refine your future content strategy.
5. Instagram Reels Shares
The fastest-growing feature on Instagram is Reels, as everyone might know. However, to easily measure your Reels’ performance, you must consider how often they’ve been played. But most importantly, you should focus on the shares, because shares have the potential to double or triple your reach. And that’s something worth tracking!
6. Follower Engagement
When you post your content on Instagram, you don’t want people just to watch it, you actually need them to care. That is basically what every creator demands when they post content, right?
This is where your follower engagement comes into play. This Instagram metric measures the average number of times each follower engages with your content. The higher the number, the better the engagement.
Engagement refers to the total number of likes and comments you’ve earned on your Instagram content. It shows the percentage of your followers who engage with your messages and take action to show it. This useful metric helps you analyze your follower count and measure your performance more realistically.
Wondering how to calculate your engagement rate? To do that, take the total number of engagements, which you can find in your Instagram insights, including comments, likes, and shares, and divide it by the total number of followers you have.
7. Reach Engagement
When you focus on your follower engagement, there’s something else you need to focus on just as much: your reach engagement. Calculating your reach engagement makes it easier to see if your social media marketing is working or not.
Your reach engagement shows the percentage of people who saw your content and engaged with it in different ways. This also includes accounts that don’t follow you but may have seen your content and liked, shared, or saved it. To calculate the engagement rate by reach, divide the total number of engagements by the number of followers who saw your content. Then, multiply the result by 100 to have the exact percentage.
For example, imagine you ran an Instagram ad campaign, and your ad received 75 likes with a reach of 600. This would result in an engagement rate of 12.5%. Which is quite impressive!
8. Website Traffic
When we talk about measuring your website traffic, we mean the ongoing traffic from Instagram. For example, if you have a link in your bio for your eCommerce store, website, or anything similar, you need to know how many people have clicked on it after viewing a post, story, or reel.
This Instagram metric will help you determine if your content is effectively driving sales from the website link you have in your bio and if your content is leading to any purchases.
When you measure your website traffic through the insights in your profile activity, you’re trying to understand how much customer traffic your content generates and how effectively it motivates your followers to click on your link.
Keep an eye on this so you can refine your content to better match what your followers want. Remember, more traffic always means more followers and customers.
9. Comments Per Posts
How do you think your followers interact with your content on Instagram? One way your followers show you their appreciation is through comments. While likes might seem pleasing, comments are actually more satisfying than likes.
Liking your posts only takes a second, while commenting takes time to write and come up with something meaningful. When someone leaves a comment, it shows that you’ve really caught their interest and connected with them in some way.
When you track the number of comments, you’ll be able to measure your followers’ reactions. If you see the number of comments decrease, it means they don’t like your content. Conversely, if the number increases, it means they do like it.
In this case, you can manage your content by introducing new ideas that your followers will like and removing the types of content they don’t prefer.
10. Instagram Story Views
One of the strongest connections you can build with your audience is through your stories. The more your followers engage with your stories, the stronger your connection will become.
To understand how your audience is engaging, track metrics such as view counts, taps forward or back, replies, impressions, and exits for each story slide. Analyzing these metrics will help you know your audience’s interests and engagement patterns.
To measure Instagram story metrics and to know how many people watched your stories from start to finish, use the “Watch Through Rate.” Wondering how it’s calculated? Track the number of views from the first story to the last. This shows how many followers viewed your story all the way to the end.
Conclusion
Now that you have all the information about Instagram metrics and how they can benefit your marketing, consider their impact on your business. Instagram metrics help you understand your content’s performance and audience engagement. By tracking metrics like engagement rates and impressions, you can refine your strategy, connect better with your followers, and achieve your social media goals.
FAQs
When someone says “100m” on Instagram or TikTok, they’re showing off because they’ve reached 100 million followers, views, or likes. It’s a big achievement!
To perform sentiment analysis on Instagram without using any tools, start by looking for mentions of your brand to see what people are saying about it online. Next, define the terms you’ll use for your sentiment analysis to ensure consistency. Finally, sort out your findings into a report to put the results into context and understand the overall sentiment around your brand.
Although Instagram doesn’t allow direct access to other users’ analytics, you can use Instagram audit tools to gather insights into the performance of their accounts. But, if you want to check insights for your own Instagram account, here’s how you can do it:
Open your Instagram app and go to your profile.
Tap the three lines in the top right corner.
Choose “Insights” from the menu that appears.
You can only access Instagram insights if you have a business or public account, so if your account is private, you won’t be able to find this feature.
For brands with large audiences, achieving a good reach on Instagram means around 8% of your followers should see each post and about 1% should view each Story. On Facebook, a good reach is typically around 6% of your followers. These percentages indicate how effectively your content is reaching and engaging your audience.
