Monitoring the performance of your marketing campaigns is a must on any platform, including Instagram. If you don’t take time to take a look at your analytics, how will you know if your efforts are giving results?
But when it comes to Instagram metrics, it might be a little difficult to figure out where to start and which ones are the most important.
We’re here to help by offering a list of the 5 key Instagram metrics to measure performance.
1. Follower Number and Quality
The most basic KPI for Instagram is the number of followers you have. Here, we’re talking about genuine human beings, i.e. organic Instagram followers that are most likely to engage with your content, not fake followers that can be bought from click farms.
But numbers aren’t the only thing that matters. It’s also important to determine the quality of your followers. Ask yourself: Are they relevant to your brand, either as potential partners or customers? For instance, if you sell anti-age cosmetic products, it will make no sense if the majority of your followers are in their teens.
2. Engagement Rate
When it comes to Instagram analytics, growing the number of followers is definitely important, but it won’t mean a lot if your followers don’t care about what you post. Only if they interact with your content you will have proof that your posts are resonating with your audience.
Your engagement rate does exactly that: it shows you how much your posts are resonating with the people who see them. If they are willing to take some time to leave a comment, it means that they’re paying attention and are likely to become customers in the future.
Common engagement metrics include likes, reactions, comments, saves, shares, mentions, direct messages, link clicks, replies, profile visits, use of branded hashtags, and so on.
To increase your engagement, try posting at the times when your audience is most likely to be engaged. According to Sprout Social, the best times to post are during the week around 11 a.m., CST.
3. Stories Engagement
According to statistics, 50% of brands worldwide publish at least one story a month. In fact, IG Stories are the third most popular tool used by marketers in North America.
Instagram stories are different from standard IG posts as they disappear after just 24 hours, which makes it somewhat more difficult to track engagement.
One way to examine your IG Stories engagement is by using the platform’s native analytics tool, Insights, a feature only accessible to business profiles. Views and exits are the two key metrics to focus on. The number of views tells you how many viewers saw your story, whereas the exits let you know which story slide viewers were on when they left your story.
4. Website Traffic
Just like other social media platforms, Instagram can drive large amounts of traffic to your site. In fact, statistics show that 50% of people have visited a site to make a purchase after seeing a product on Instagram.
However, it is somewhat more limiting as you can’t add a clickable link to every post. Instead, you can only add a link in your bio and, if you have more than 10,000 followers, you can also add a swipe-up link to your stories.
You can track the number of site visitors that come from the platform with Google Analytics. You can also use Goals in Google Analytics to track how your Instagram traffic converts.
5. Comments per Post
Although Instagram likes can be a great ego booster, comments are worth much more. Why? Because tapping the like button only takes a moment, whereas typing a comment requires more time. When a user leaves a comment, it means that you have managed to capture their interest.
Keep track of which of your posts get the most comments and see if there’s a particular type of photo your audience comments on. If so, focus on creating more posts similar to those in order to keep your engagement levels high. In addition, monitor the number of comments you get. If the average number of comments declines, try to determine why your followers are less engaged.
Final Thoughts
Instagram can be an excellent channel to market your brand. But if you want your marketing campaigns to be effective, you need to know which metrics to track. Focusing on these five key metrics will provide a clear picture of how your marketing strategy is performing, and maybe even give you ideas on how you can improve it.
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