What Are Instagram Insights and How to Make Use of Them

Data is knowledge and knowledge is power! Data and analytics are helpful metrics that are useful in making inferences about your audience and gaining a better understanding of who they are and what they want. If your business is active on Instagram, you’ll want to make use and sense of the platform’s Instagram Insights in order to create an effective Instagram strategy.

Instagram Insights offers measurable data that you can use to make inferences on what’s working and what’s not in your Instagram strategy. We’re here to help you break down each metric and category so that you get a better understanding of your social media marketing efforts.

Viewing Instagram Insights

1. In order to use Instagram Insights, your account must be a business profile. Here’s how to do it:

2.  Create a Facebook Business Profile for the same persona if you haven't already.

3. Make sure your Instagram profile is public. Private profiles cannot be used as business ones.

4. Return to your Settings page and tap "Account."

5. Select "Switch Account Type" and choose "Switch to Business Account."

6. Follow Instagram's prompts to set up your business profile.

7. Tap "Done."

Insights Overview

 To get to your Instagram Insights, simply tap on “Insights” on your Instagram Business Profile. You can also get here by using the hamburger icon located in the top-right corner. You’ll see at the top, you can toggle between data from the last 7 days or 30 days. Your Insights Overview page contains basic data for your profile including: 

• The number of followers gained during your selected date range

• The number of accounts reached during your selected date range

• The number of content interactions (likes, comments, saves, shares) during your selected date range.

Some of these categories can be expanded to show more data. We’ll explain each of these below.

Accounts Reached

Reach shows the number of unique users that have seen any of your Instagram posts and is measured by these metrics:

• Followers & Non-Followers – the number of followers vs non-followers your posts reached

• Content Type – the number of reach your posts and stories generated

• Top Posts – the posts that received the most reach and engagement

  • TIP: Seeing which posts garnered the most reach and engagement tells you the type of content your audience responds to the most and can help you in planning future content.

• Impressions – the number of times your posts were seen

• Profile Activity

  • Profile Visits – the number of times your profile has been viewed on Instagram

  • Website Taps – the number of times people viewed your website from Instagram

  • Email Button Taps – the number of times people tried to email your business from Instagram

  • Get Direction Taps – the number of times people viewed directors to your business from Instagram

  • Call Button Taps – the number of times people tried to call your business from Instagram

Your Audience

Here, you’ll find data your audience in general including:

• Follower Growth

  • Overall

  • Followers

  • Unfollows

• Basic Demographics

  • Top Locations

  • Age Range

  • Gender

• Most Active Times

  • TIP: Seeing the days and hours your followers are most active can be instrumental in deciding when to schedule your posts!

Content Interactions

Content interactions will help you track how your content is performing. Your engagements are broken down by content type here including:

• Post Interactions

  • Likes – the number of users that liked your posts

  • Comments – the number of comments left on your posts

  • Saves – the number of users who saved your posts by clicking the bookmark icon

  • Shares – the number of times users shared your content

• Story Interactions

  • Replies

• Reels Interactions

• IGTV Video Interactions

• Live Video Interactions

Content You Shared

Here, you can view all of the posts you shared on your feed and their engagements broken down by metric. At the top, you can select the type of action users took after seeing your post including:

• Call Button Taps

• Comments

• Email Button Taps

• Follows

• Get Directions Taps

• Impressions

• Likes

• Post Interactions

• Profile Visits

• Reach

• Saves

• Shares

• Text Button Taps

• Video Views

• Website Taps

In Closing

Now that you have the tools you gain a better understanding of your audience and Instagram profile, we hope you can take this knowledge even further by implementing the inferences you made from the data and implementing new strategies to your overall social media plan.

 You’ve done the easiest part, finding your Instagram Insights and learning about each category and metric. Here comes the hard part: analyzing the data and figuring out what your audience needs, what they don’t need and planning future content from there. Trifecta Marketing Services offers comprehensive social media planning including budgeting, content creation & planning and strategy. Get a thorough monthly report with all of these metrics explained and more by utilizing our social media services. Visit www.trifectamarketingservices.com for more info and fill out a contact form to get in touch.