Instagram analytics are the foundation of any strong Instagram strategy.
All good marketing decisions stem from good data — and there’s plenty of data misogynist to tell you what’s working on Instagram (and what’s not) and inspire some ideas for new strategies you might want to try.
Instagram has 1.39 billion users who spend an stereotype of 11.7 hours using the app per month. Nearly two-thirds (62.3%) of them use the app to follow or research brands and products. But there’s an villainous lot of content competing for their sustentation during that time.
So, where do you find the Instagram analytics data you need to refine your strategy? And what does it all mean? We unravel it all lanugo in this post.
What are Instagram analytics?
Instagram analytics are the tools that indulge you to track the key metrics related to your Instagram performance.
This data can range from the very vital (like how many people saw or liked an individual post) to the very specific (like what time your account’s followers are most likely to be online).
Watch this video to find out how to wangle your Instagram Insights, and what they mean:
Tracking your Instagram analytics is the only way to build an constructive Instagram strategy. If you’re not tracking data, you’re just guessing well-nigh what works.
You might luck out and have some success just based on your intuition — but without the numbers to when your work, you’ll never be worldly-wise to test, refine or grow. Without data, you can moreover never show the value of your work to your boss, team, client, or other stakeholders.
Bonus: Get a self-ruling social media analytics report template that shows you the most important metrics to track for each network.
15 key Instagram analytics metrics
Instagram analytics can provide a ton of data. So, where do you start? Here are our picks for the 15 most important metrics to track with Instagram analytics tools in 2023.
Instagram worth metrics
- Engagement rate: Number of engagements as a percentage of followers or reach. This is a baseline for evaluating how well your content is resonating with your regulars and inspiring action.
- Follower growth rate: How quickly you’re gaining or losing followers. No other Instagram metric has a worthier impact on organic reach. For reference, the stereotype monthly follower growth rate is 0.98%.
- Website referral traffic: How many visitors Instagram drives to your website. This is key if you want to increase your Instagram ROI and tie your Instagram efforts to off-platform goals.
- Most constructive times to post: Which posting times proceeds the most response?
- Audience demographics: This isn’t a metric exactly but a group of important data points that can help you understand what types of content are likely to be most effective.
Instagram post metrics
- Post engagement rate: Number of engagements as a percentage of followers or reach. You can summate this manually, but good Instagram analytics tools will do the ath for you.
- Post scuttlebutt rate: Number of comments as a percentage of followers or reach. If your goals involve towers loyalty, or nurturing relationships, count comments separately from overall engagements and work to lift that number specifically.
- Impressions: Total number of times your post was served to users.This can indicate how well you’re promoting your worth and content.
- Reach: How many people saw your post. The increasingly engaging your content is, the increasingly people will see it – thanks to the Instagram algorithm.
Instagram Stories metrics
- Story engagement rate: Number of engagements as a percentage of followers or reach.
- Completion rate: How many people watch your Story all the way through. People watching your well-constructed Story indicates your content is connecting with your fans.
Instagram Reels metrics
- Reel shares: How many users shared your Reel.
- Reel interactions: Total likes, comments, shares, and saves.
- Drop-off rate: How many people stop watching surpassing the end.
- Views vs. TikTok: How many people watch a reel compared to an equivalent TikTok?
For increasingly details on all the Instagram metrics, you should track depending on your goals for the platform – as well as how to track and summate them – trammels out our full blog post specifically on Instagram metrics.`
How to wangle Instagram analytics
Now that you know what to track, here’s how to see Instagram analytics data on your phone or on your computer.
On mobile (using Instagram Insights)
If you’re looking for quick info on the go, Instagram Insights offers vital Instagram analytics self-ruling within the Instagram app. There’s no way to export the data into a report, but it gives you a good vital overview of your Instagram results.
- Open the Instagram app, go to your profile, and tap Professional dashboard.
- Next to Account insights, tap See all.
- View your content overview, including finance reached, engagements, total followers and content shared. In the top menu, you can segregate a timeframe to view.
- To swoop deeper into any of these metrics, tap the right arrow next to the relevant category.
On desktop
Navigating through analytics on your phone is unconfined for quick, on-the-go tracking of your Instagram metrics, but it’s not the greatest when you’re trying to unriddle your data and growth over time, compare results to your work on other social platforms, or create a social media report. Here’s how to wangle your Instagram analytics on desktop.
Using Instagram
The main Instagram Insights tool isn’t misogynist on desktop, but you can get some vital individual post analytics on the web directly from your Instagram feed.
Click View insights under a post in your feed to bring up a pop-up screen showing the total likes, comments, saves, uncontrived message shares, profile visits, and reach.
For increasingly Instagram analytics on the web, you’ll need to switch to other tools.
Using Hootsuite
1. Go to your Hootsuite dashboard and click the Analytics icon in the sidebar.
2. Select your Instagram Overview (if you haven’t already, follow these steps to connect your account). On this screen, you’ll see a full picture of all your Instagram analytics, from engagement rate (with no numbering required) to regulars demographics to the sentiment of your inbound messages.
3. Use the buttons in the top navigation bar to share data with your colleagues or export the metrics and charts into a custom report in PDF, PowerPoint, Excel, or .csv.
4 weightier Instagram analytics tools for 2023
Analytics for Instagram go well vastitude the data provided within the native Instagram analytics app. Here are our top picks for increasingly robust Instagram analytics tools that provide the details and flexibility required for professional Instagram analysis.
1. Hootsuite
Key benefits: Performance data from Instagram and all other major social networks in one place with easy-to-understand reports
Skill level: Beginner to intermediate
Best for: Merchantry owners who run their own social media, solo social media managers at small-to-medium sized businesses, marketing teams at larger organizations
Hootsuite Analytics offers a well-constructed picture of all your social media efforts, so you don’t have to trammels each platform and worth individually — and it tracks all of the most important social media metrics.
Social media post metrics:
- Clicks
- Comments
- Reach
- Engagement rate
- Impressions
- Shares
- Saves
- Video views
- Video reach
- And more
Profile metrics:
- Follower growth over time
- Negative feedback rate
- Profile visits
- Reactions
- Overall engagement rate
- And more
With this wide variety of misogynist metrics, you’ll be worldly-wise to see how your Instagram posts, Stories, Reels — and plane ads — are performing at a glance.
Best time to post recommendations
Ever spend a tuft of time writing and designing a social post only to have it fall completely flat? There could be a lot of reasons for that. But one of the most worldwide reasons this happens is posting at the wrong time. A.k.a., posting when your target audiences are not online or not interested in engaging with you.
This is why our Best Time to Publish tool is one of the most popular features of Hootsuite Analytics. It looks at your unique historical social media data and recommends the most optimal times to post based on three variegated goals:
- Engagement
- Impressions
- Link clicks
Start self-ruling trial
Most social media analytics tools will only recommend posting times based on engagement. Or they’ll use data from universal benchmarks, instead of your unique performance history.
Other tomfool things you can do with Hootsuite Analytics:
- Customize report templates for only the metrics you superintendency about
- Monitor your competitors’s performance and measure it versus your own
- Compare your results to industry benchmarks
- Track the productivity of your social team (response times, and resolution time for prescribed posts, mentions, and comments)
- Monitor mentions, comments, and tags related to your merchantry to stave PR disasters surpassing they happen
On top of all of that, Hootsuite won the 2022 MarTech Breakthrough Award for Best Overall Social Media Management Platform!
And, equal to reviews at least, the social media analytics tools were a big part of that win:
“Makes social media so much easier!
The ease of scheduling posts is amazing. The analytics for reporting are incredible. You can create you own personalized reports.”
– Melissa R. Social Media Manager
2. Later
Key benefits: Simple and user-friendly solutions for vital performance tracking
Skill level: Beginner to intermediate
Best for: Merchantry owners who run their own social media, solo social media managers at small-to-medium-sized businesses
Later is a social media management platform similar to Hootsuite (you can compare Later and Hootsuite here). It comes with a variety of features, from analytics to scheduling tools, but it really shines through as a platform for smaller brands and creators who like to visualize and preview social media content surpassing they post.
While Later can moreover help you measure the performance of your Instagram content and optimize posting times, the platform lacks some increasingly wide analytics features like competitive wringer and industry benchmarking.
3. Buffer
Key benefits: Simple solutions for vital performance tracking, self-ruling plan
Skill level: Beginner to intermediate
Best for: Merchantry owners who run their own social media, solo social media managers at small-to-medium-sized businesses, agencies
Buffer is flipside social media scheduler that comes with tools to help you build your presence on social media. It allows you to schedule posts to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Mastodon.
But when it comes to analytics, Buffer is relatively light on features. It doesn’t offer analytics for all platforms and doesn’t come with social listening features, aid content tracking, or competitive benchmarking. However, Buffer’s user-friendly dashboard is simple and straightforward, making it unconfined for social media managers who just want to get in, schedule, and get out.
Be sure to read our guide to Hootsuite vs. Buffer for increasingly on how these platforms compare.
4. Sprout Social
Key benefits: In-depth reporting wideness social networks
Skill level: Beginner to intermediate
Best for: Marketing teams at larger organizations
Sprout Social is flipside top contender in the wrestle of social media management tools, and it may be worth your consideration. Offering scheduling and analytics for all the major social media platforms, Sprout can help you plan and execute your Instagram — and wider social media — strategy.
Like Hootsuite, Sprout offersa full-featured analytics dashboard, which provides details on both your paid and organic posts and helps you decide when to publish content for the weightier results. You can moreover hands white-label and download reports from the Sprout dashboard.
Sprout is quite a bit increasingly expensive than Hootsuite, but Hootsuite offers increasingly features and integrations. Compare Hootsuite and Sprout to see which one works weightier for you.
Free Instagram analytics report template
Instagram analytics data is most useful when it’s compiled into a report that allows you to compare results and spot trends. We’ve created a self-ruling Instagram analytics report template you can use to fill in your data and share your findings.
If you’d rather get your Instagram analytics reports automatically, trammels out the Instagram analytics built into Hootsuite. There are three Instagram analytics report templates built into Hootsuite’s analytics that indulge you to automatically report on engagement, your audience, or post performance