In the digital age, Instagram has already demonstrated itself as a vital communication and sales channel for brands . But how can you assess the performance of your company on this platform?
Instagram metrics are indicators published by the social network itself, which reveal very important details about your brand’s profile and publications, especially about the reach and engagement.
By analyzing these numbers, you can identify best practices to generate value for your audience and optimize the performance of your content on Instagram .
Read this article until the end to understand how to view Instagram metrics and learn about the main ones!
How to see Instagram metrics?
You need to have a business or content producer account on Instagram in order to see metrics.
Then, just access the Insights tool , available in the mobile app, within the settings menu. You can filter the results by pre-defined or customized periods, within the last 90 days.
Insights will give you an overview of your profile metrics, comprising accounts reached, accounts engaged, and total followers. You also see a “Recent Highlights” section that shows how this account improved over the period of time that you have chosen.
Additionally, you can select specific content to get more details about its performance — these can be posts, Stories , Reels, and live streams.
An alternative to Instagram’s native feature are social media management tools , which allow you to schedule posts and extract reports on their performance.
What are the main Instagram metrics?
It’s common to get confused about the differences between Instagram metrics. To make a strategic analysis of your performance, understand what each of them measures below!
1. Reach
Reach is the number of unique accounts that at least viewed your content at least once on Instagram. This helps you understand whether your posts are being delivered to your audience.
For Reels, the metric measures the unique accounts which saw the video appear on their screen at some point, even though it wasn’t played.
2. Impressions
Unlike reach, impressions represent the total views some content material reaches, and they account for view repetitions accruing from the same account.
Both reach and impressions are available inside the “Accounts Reached“ option in Insights.
3. Engagement
Engagement, in turn, measures the number of unique accounts that interacted with your content. Interactions include likes, comments, shares, saves, and replies (in the case of Stories) to posts.
This indicator is available in Instagram Insights under the “Accounts with engagement” option.
You can also determine how much engagement a specific piece of content or your profile gets using the figures of engagement and reach. You do it by dividing the engagement number by the reach number, then multiply it by 100 to get the percentage.
4. Reproductions
Plays measures the number of times a video content has been played on Instagram-that’s either because it automatically starts playing or the person clicks the video to view it in the mobile browser, say.
5. Follower growth
In the “Total Followers” option within Insights, you can track how many new users started following your account, how many unfollowed you , and the net result of this subtraction. This way, you can measure the growth of your profile’s followers.
6. Follower demographics
Below your follower growth, you’ll see important data about your audience’s demographics: their top locations (cities and countries), age groups (overall or split between men and women), and genders .
It is worth noting that audience demographic data is also available in “Accounts reached” and “Accounts with engagement”, as long as the content has reached or engaged more than 100 users in the defined period.
You can use this information to base the construction of your brand persona and also to plan content for Instagram.
7. Most active periods
This metric appears right after your audience demographics, revealing the times and days when your followers are most active on Instagram. This is valuable information for planning your publishing calendar.
8. Profile activities
Profile activity metrics are available at the bottom of the “Accounts Reached” section. The first indicator displayed is the number of visits to the profile , that is, how many times it has been accessed by other users.
You can also check the number of clicks on external links in your Instagram bio and on your profile’s business address.
When links direct to the brand’s sales page , clicks on the URL are essential to indicate the audience’s purchase intent.
9. Clicks on links in Stories
When you insert an external link into a post in Stories, you can also see how many times it was clicked. Simply go into the metrics for that specific post and find the number of clicks on the link.
How to analyze Instagram metrics?
Instagram metrics provide important insights into the performance of your content on the social network, making it essential to monitor results frequently.
Most data is only available for 90 days on Instagram. Therefore, it is essential to keep a history of recorded results or use a management tool that allows you to extract reports.
Another very important point is the analysis of indicators based on the objectives of your channel strategy. Increased brand awareness? Engagement with the public? Sales on your website?
Once you clearly define these objectives, you will be able to define which metrics are mostly worth monitoring and analyzing in the long term.
Finally, don’t forget to look for causes of growth or decline with your performance. Thus, you will find the best strategies and the most assertive content for you to include in your planning process.