The Instagram Analyst’s Handbook: Decoding Engagement and Reach

Instagram Insights: Ultimate Guide to Understand IG Data

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

When it comes to online marketing, Instagram plays a key role for product based organizations as many marketers prefer Instagram as a prominent influencer marketing platform. So, Instagram Insights is a necessity for Instagram data analysis. Without that it’s tough to determine your audience and growth point. Well! Does all this making you confused or clueless? Worry not! We have a solution for that as well.

In this article, we are explaining how to analyze Instagram insights to enhance your brand marketing . Keep reading for more!

• Part1: How to access Instagram Insights
• Part2: View Posts Data
• Part3: What does stories data mean
• Part4: Notes you should know
• Part5: Alternatives to Instagram insights

Part 1: How to access Instagram Insights?

Instagram Insights being a totally free tool to be used on your phone requires a business account to work. The first and foremost thing you need to do is converting the regular Instagram account to a business account. When you convert to a business account, you can see Instagram Insights for content posted after that.

Insights from Instagram enables you to view your content, follower demographics and actions. You can measure campaigns, compare content, and see the performance of individual posts. Total number of posts on your account and the addition in the previous week can also viewed. You can view websites clicks along with call-to-action button clicks i.e. email, call, and direction.

Here is how to access Instagram Insights –

Access insights from business profile

Impressions, profile visits, and reach can be visible with insights and can be tracked weekly. Followers’ most active time during the day, on your business profile can be traced to enhance your marketing campaign.

• Log into your business profile and click the 4 vertical-bar-like icon from the top-right corner.
• Now, you get an overall view of the way people interact with your business profile.
• Choose particular promotions/posts/stories to get their insights.

Access insights from post

On your business profile, click a post to view insights. A right tilted arrow on the bottom-right denotes a promoted post.

On a promoted post click ‘Original’ to view its Instagram Insights, and tap ‘Promotion’ for viewing insights.

Access insights from story

Automatic chronological sorting of Stories helps to understand the pattern of content engagement. Instagram Insights expire after 14 days of posting Story. But the Story is active only for 24 hours.

• Open ‘Stories’, and swipe up the post.
• Click the vertical-bar icon and view your Story insights.

Part 2: View Posts Data

You can check several posts together or dive deeper into the metrics for post specific information. Here we have explained both of them.

View metrics for Individual posts

With the ‘View Insight’ button you can know the details about any post. Various other metrics like likes, comments, and saves are displayed on the top. The ‘Actions’ segment shows user response. Here is what Instagram tracks – Profile Visits, Website Clicks, Follows

The ‘Discovery’ section’s first statistics denotes percentage of non-followers who found your post. Next to that, the post’s reach and impressions. The source of those impressions are people –

Home – who got the post on their feed

Profile – who found it on your profile

Search & Explore – who got your post from ‘Explore’ feed or through keyword search

Hashtags – who got your post from hashtag search

Location – who saw the post from location feed

Others – posts shared through DM, saved, mentioned, tagged, notifications from tagged/mentioned posts, and posts on ‘Following’ tab notifications

Filtering post data based on metric, timeframe, and content type

Three most recent posts are visible on the Instagram Insight’s ‘Posts’ section. This section by default displays the cumulative number of impressions for all the posts from the previous year.

You can segregate the Instagram Insight data by clicking the blue links from the top. Hit any filter among Content type/measurement (saved, impressions, likes, comments, engagement, and reach)/time. These filters help you pick relevant information to determine campaigns, goals, and top performing content.

You can measure goals for a certain period through impressions and reach, engagement, ratio of engagement to reach, best and worst performing content types. Campaign goals are measured by timeframe.

Part 3: What does stories data mean

Only ‘Stories’ after subscribing to a business account will be offered insights with. Live content doesn’t have insights as of now. Here is what a Story contains –

Reach – unique user numbers that viewed your Story

Impressions – total views for your Story

Taps back – how many times a user tapped to view your previous Story

Taps forward – number of times a user taps to skip the following Story

Swipe away – how many times someone skipped to the next person’s Story

Replies – how many times people replied to your Story through ‘Send Message’ option

Exits - how many times people exit Stories to see their feed

Part 4: Notes you should know

The difference between impressions and reach

Impressions are a number of times a post has been viewed, whereas reach explains the unique views on your post. One account’s multiple views are taken as a single reach but multiple impressions.

Multiple photos or videos will be counted as one

A post can be a single video/photo or an album on Instagram. The Instagram Insights takes the entire album post as a single entity and impressions and reach is determined based on that.

Part 5: Alternatives to Instagram insights

1. Keyhole

Apart from Instagram Insights, you can look for a tool like Keyhole. Its Instagram analytics segment is fueled with optimization data, for determining how to create and when to share posts. It has engagement rate graphs, hashtag analytics, etc. You get to know the most interactive post and how it influences a post’s popularity.

2. Squarelovin

Squarelovin is an in-depth Instagram analytics tool that shows the metrics for recent posts’ growth. Monthly analysis, posts’ history fragmented to year, month, day, and hour as well as deep insights on communities’ interests and preferences is possible. You get to know what fuels engagement, the best and worst time to post.

Click here

Conclusion

When you have a clear idea about Instagram Insights, achieving the best out of your marketing campaign is a smooth sail. Put your heart into it and see your brand soar higher with Instagram Insights. If you want to edit Instagram video, Filmora is a powerful editor with Instagram editing tools. Try it out!

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

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