In an era where everything we do digitally is linked to an objective or goal, we need certain tools to measure the success of such activities. Traditionally, it was difficult to analyse viewer behaviour. However, today with the expansion of the internet and social media in particular, it has become relatively easier to establish audience consumption patterns and understand the kind of content that works for the intended audience. In this blog, we will learn how to assess and understand such insights through Instagram.

What is Instagram Insights?
Instagram Insights is a built-in feature for Instagram business accounts that can help you learn more about your followers and the performance of your content with your audience. It is useful in understanding what your audience likes or engages with the most. You can easily view insights for specific posts, stories, videos, reels, and live videos posted on the account and see how each one has performed. Instagram Insights is free and available only for business or creator accounts.

Why should you use Instagram Insights?
Instagram insights act as an effective tool to measure the reach, growth or success of a brand’s content or campaigns. Here are a few reasons why you should be using Instagram Insights-

• Cost effective : Instagram insights can be accessed without incurring any cost. Instead of spending huge sums on third party apps, this is a reliable and effective alternative since it’s an in-app feature.
• Helps to understand audience behaviour: With the help of the data provided by the app, you can identify audience demographics and find out if you are targeting the right audience.
• Helps with Content strategy : Insights help to understand what sort of content and content format is helping with getting you the highest reach or engagement. This helps in reducing trial and error in terms of content planning and creation.
• Keeps track of follower growth: Content plays a huge role in determining how a brand is positioned on social media. Hence, it has a direct impact on the number of followers at any given point of time. Instagram Insights can help you keep track of your brand’s followers and make necessary adjustments to your content as required. For instance, if you notice that your followers are decreasing , it could indicate that the content being put up is no longer adding value to them and your approach to content planning needs to change.
• Assists in planning future campaigns: Insights can be used to devise a corrective action plan or a strategy that meets the objectives of the brand.

How to access Instagram Insights in the app?
First things first, it is essential to have a creator or business account to view Instagram Insights. They can be accessed using the following methods:
– Go to your profile and click on the Professional dashboard.
– Alternatively, go to your profile, click the three lines on the top right corner and click on insights.

How to understand Instagram Insights?

1. Info icon : The top right corner of the insights tab has the information icon which helps beginners to understand the different information provided on the insights page.
   
   
2. Time range :  You can find a time range tab in the top left corner of the insights page. This can be adjusted based on the information required. You can easily choose the time frame of the data that you’re planning to analyse. If you run different campaigns during different time periods, they can be assessed individually by selecting the relevant period here.
   
   
3. Accounts Reached : This is a metric which helps to measure an estimated number of unique accounts that have seen your content- either organically or through ads. This includes all types of content like posts, stories, reels and live videos.
   – Reached Audience : This section helps to analyse how many unique accounts have been reached organically or through ads and further breaks it down by follower status (follower or non-followers), gender, age range, country and city.
   – Content reach :  The content reach parameter helps to understand which type of content is reaching the audience and which kind of content is being seen the most. You can also find a graph that helps to understand the number of people who have seen the posts. Finally, top performing content will be displayed at the bottom based on reach.
   – Impressions : Impressions refers to the number of times all of your posts have been viewed, including repeat views by the same users.
   – Profile Activity :  The number of times your profile has been visited appears here. It also breaks down the actions taken by the visitors such as the number of website taps, call button taps, address taps and so on. Such data should have already been enabled For these metrics to show up.
   
   
4. Accounts Engaged : This refers to the number of accounts that have viewed and engaged with your account through likes, comments, saves, shares and replies. This also includes ads.
   – Engaged audience : The engaged audience segment shows how many unique users have liked, commented, shared, saved or replied to your content. It also shows the countries and cities where the audience is concentrated, the gender distribution of this audience, age range of the largest segments of the audience and also the number of followers and non- followers that have interacted with the content.
   – Content interactions : The number of likes, comments, shares, saves and replies to your content is shown here. Post interactions also include the number of unlikes, unsaves and undeleted comments.
   
   
5. Total followers : This is the total number of people that follow you. It also displays the number of unfollows, top locations, age ranges, and genders. It segregates the follows and unfollows in different time intervals and shows overall growth.
   – Most active times : This section shows the days and the time periods during which your followers are most active. This allows you to determine the best time to post your content and engage the greatest number of followers.
   
   
6. Content you shared : The total number of posts, stories, reels, live videos and active promotions shared including today’s date is shown here.

How to see insights individually?

1. Individual posts
   ● Open the post for which you want to analyse the insights.
   ● Click on the “view insight” icon at the bottom of the post
2. Reel
   ● Go to the reel section and open the reel that you want to analyse.
   ● Click the three dots on the bottom right corner and click on insights.
3. Story 
   ● For a story which is currently live on the profile, open the story and click on the graph icon on the left to view the insights.
   ● For stories which have expired, go to the professional dashboard and click the content shared icon. Expired stories can be accessed here under the story section.

To conclude, Instagram Insights is a great tool to understand your audience and followers much better, assess the sort of content that works best, gauge the success of campaigns and also assist in planning in future campaigns.
Still finding it difficult to grow and connect with your audience on social media ? Our social media experts are here for you. Contact us today and let’s take your Instagram game to the next level.