A comprehensive social media strategy needs to be both creative and analytical. You have to be creative in designing the content and writing the copy, but analytical in adjusting your approach to achieve results.
Have you ever popped into your Instagram account’s “insights” tab and wondered what the heck any of it meant? Well, it’s actually a lot of helpful numbers!
Instagram’s “insights” tab provides important and easily-accessible data that tells you how your content is performing. This information can then be utilized to tailor your social strategy and magnify your marketing results. So, here’s a complete guide to Instagram analytics and how to use those numbers to inform your social strategy!
First off, here’s how to access your Instagram Insights:
Go to your profile in the Instagram app. Click the three lines in the top right corner. In the drop-down, select “Insights.” There, you will see the data behind your account actions. Make sure to adjust the time frame in the top left corner to give you more accurate information!
So what do these Instagram metrics mean?
Here’s a breakdown of each of the measured components and how you can utilize the information for future content.
Accounts Reached
Under the accounts reached section, you’ll find information about your content reach, impressions, and profile activity.
- Instagram Reach: The number of unique users that saw your Instagram content or story on any given day
- Instagram Impressions: The number of times your content was shown to users.
Under Instagram Reach, you’ll find a breakdown of followers vs non-followers reached. This breakdown will give you an understanding of who you’re speaking to and whether or not you’re engaging your current community.
Instagram also now gives you more information about the audience that you reached. Some metrics include top cities, countries, age ranges, and gender breakdown.
You can also track profile activity to get a better understanding of how the accounts reached responded to your content.
How to Use Audience Reach To Create More Strategic Content
- If your impressions are higher than your reach, it’s an indicator that your audience is viewing your content multiple times. This might indicate valuable or engaging content and you can use that information to create more content that mimics it.
- Adjust your tone of voice according to audience location and age range for more engagement!
- Look at follower vs non-follower reach to find out what format of content resonates with your goals. For example, Reels tend to be shown to more non-followers and stories tend to be shown more to followers. To engage your current community, you should spend more time creating valuable stories; to reach a larger audience, post more Reels.
- Looking at profile activity can tell you how effective and engaging your CTAs are. If your profile visits are lacking in comparison to your reach, then maybe you need a stronger hook. If your link taps are lacking, work on creating a clearer CTA.
Accounts Engaged
Reach is not the end-all-be-all. Audience engagement tracks content likes, comments, saves, and shares. This can be a strong indicator of how much people enjoy and trust in your content. The accounts engaged section on Instagram breaks down all engagements by content type so you can get a better understanding for your audience’s preferences.
How to Use Audience Engagement To Create More Strategic Content
- Because Instagram breaks down content engagement by content type, it’s easy to see which format your reached audience prefers. Depending on what your marketing goals are, you can create more or less of a specific type of content.
- When you click “see all” under the “content interactions” section, you’ll find the engagement details for each piece of content. Here, you can check the insights for a specific content piece. You can also sort the content by that which received the most engagement and then replicate it in future content.
- Instagram also provides specific audience demographics for engaged accounts. You want to lean into this demographic and continue to engage them.
Total Followers
Numbers aren’t everything but it can be the first impression when somebody lands on your page. Instagram provides a summary of follower insights that can be helpful when you’re planning your content.
How to Use Follower Insights To Create More Strategic Content
- Growth: this summarizes overall trends, follows, and unfollows. Take special note of follows/unfollows when you post a piece of content because that can tell you how much your content is resonating with your followers.
- Top Locations: cities and countries that most of your followers are from. If you offer location-based services or products, you obviously want to target accounts that are in your region. Otherwise, location can also inform content topics and the tone of your copy.
- Age Range: details top age ranges of your followers. Again, this can give you insight into who you’re speaking to and if they are your ICA.
- Gender: male or female breakdown of your followers. It really depends on your business but noting the difference can be helpful for your branding.
- Most Active Times: arguably one of the most important pieces of data provided. Ideally, you still want to schedule your posts for when your followers are most active.
We hope that this breakdown of Instagram analytics was useful and inspired you to be more strategic about your content. We recommend reviewing your analytics at least once a month. This will keep you on track to hitting those larger business goals.
