If you’re managing an Instagram account, it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the metrics. Which ones are important, and what can you put on the back burner for now? Find out which metrics are essential for tracking your account’s success. Then, use Instagram analytics and third-party tools to stay up-to-date on its performance.
1. Keep an Eye on Post Reach
Post reach is one of the most important metrics to keep track of when managing an Instagram account. This metric tells you how many people have seen each post. You want this kind of exposure to build brand awareness and nurture followers into customers.
If you’re unhappy with a post’s reach, compare it to a high-performing post, checking for similarities and differences. You might discover that the low reach was due to the hashtags you used, the time you posted, or even the call-to-action you included (or didn’t include). Go through each point to see where the post went wrong so you can fix it in the future.
On the other hand, if your reach is low across the board, you have an engagement problem. You aren’t getting enough engagement for Instagram to expand your reach beyond your followers. Fortunately, you can purchase real Instagram likes to change this. Then, you can finally reach people who don’t currently follow your account.
2. Stay on Top of Your Engagement Rate
You also need to keep track of your engagement rate. This refers to the percentage of people who like, comment, and share your posts.
As a general rule, engagement rates between 1-3.5% are good, while those between 3.5-6% are high. You’re killing it if your engagement rate is above 6%. That means people love your content.
However, if your engagement rate is less than 1%, you need to make some changes. You can begin by buying real Instagram likes for an immediate increase in engagement. Then, you can play around with posting at different times and uploading new types of content. Also, it’s a good idea to see what your competitors are doing. If people are liking and commenting on their content, take a page out of their playbooks to help your own account.
3. Follower Growth Is Also Important
You want to have lots of followers so you can market your products or work as an influencer. Go beyond looking at the number of followers, though, and inspect the growth. You want to analyze how many followers you’ve gained and lost over a period of time.
As you monitor the growth, look for patterns. Did you have a big drop-off after posting a piece of divisive content? Then, did you experience some growth after uploading a Live video? Keep the information in mind as you fine-tune your Instagram marketing strategy.
4. Check the Hashtag Performance
You need to use hashtags when posting on Instagram. The question is, which hashtags provide the best results? You can find out by measuring hashtag performance with a third-party analytics platform. By doing this, you can quickly see which hashtags drive the most engagement and help you build a following. Then, you can include those hashtags in more of your posts.
While you’ll want to use these hashtags often, don’t add them to every single post. You need to have a diverse hashtag strategy so your account doesn’t appear spammy.
5. Monitor Your Sales
Have you enabled Instagram Shopping so you can use the app to make sales? If so, you want to monitor your sales analytics to see how your shop is performing.
Don’t be surprised if your sales numbers are lacking at first. It takes some time to grow shops on the site. However, you should see growth as time passes.
If you still aren’t hitting your goals after a few months, compare your shop to others in your niche. What do those shops have that yours is lacking? The answer to that question can help you transform your shop.
6. Check the Best Time to Post
Did you know there is a metric that tells you the best time to post based on historic engagement rates? You’ll need to use a third-party analytics tool for this, but the extra effort will pay off. Once you know when to post, you can upload content when your audience is online and ready to engage.
7. Stay on Top of Website Traffic
If you have a link in your bio for people to visit your website, you want to keep track of the traffic you receive. Then, you can make changes to your strategy if you aren’t getting much traffic. For example, you might need to include different calls-to-action to get people to go to your bio and click the link. Thus, keep an eye on this metric so you’ll know if your strategy is working or needs some changes.
8. Check Engagement on Reels
Reels are the hottest thing on Instagram right now and are necessary if you want to build brand awareness by expanding your reach. Thus, stay on top of the engagement metric to find out how your Reels are performing. Then, use the analytics to guide you when creating and uploading Reels.
9. Monitor Your Stories Views
Instagram Stories is another fantastic way to engage with your audience and grow your following. Thus, you want to spend some time analyzing the watch-through and completion rates for your Stories.
If your Stories have a large drop-off, go to that point in the video to determine what happened. Think about what caused people to tune out at that precise moment. Then, you can avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
At the same time, if you have a Story that performed really well, you can use that as a guide for future Stories. Don’t repeat the same content, but use some of the same strategies to hold viewers’ interest.
Stay On Top of These Metrics
While there are numerous metrics you can track, these are the most important. After you get comfortable with these analytics, you can start monitoring additional metrics as well. However, you don’t have to rush to get to that point. Take your time and slowly add new analytics in when you feel comfortable doing so.
