Instagram is the platform we all love to hate, but at the end of the day, we all know how important it is to our brands. It’s one of the only social media platforms that almost every ideal client/customer is on and it’s easy to engage with them in real-time. This isn’t to say it should be the only platform you market your brand on (it should be a part of your overall marketing strategy!) but it’s also one you should have a strategy for so you can continue to reach your ideal audience.
When it comes to Instagram, there are a lot of things people tell you to do, and a lot of things they tell you not to do. It can get overwhelming and confusing. At the end of the day, you have to do what works for you and what works for your brand.
Insights to Pay Attention to on Instagram
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: likes and follows aren’t the only thing that matters when it comes to Instagram. To help you continue to reach your target audience, grow your following, and create a community, here are seven insights to pay attention to on Instagram.
Reach
One of the best ways to monitor your brand awareness on Instagram is through reach analytics. This number will tell you how many unique accounts have seen your post which translates into the amount of awareness you’re gaining.
When monitoring your reach, you’ll want to take note of when a post receives high or lower reach than usual to give you insight into the types of posts and stories to share in the future. When this happens, ask yourself these questions;
- Was there a call to action in the caption?
- Did you publish the post at a different time than you typically do?
- What hashtags did you use?
- Was there anything different about the type of content you shared?
Each of these factors will have an impact on your post’s reach so when you notice changes, it’s cubical to look into any contributing factors that would lead to an increase or decrease in reach.
Engagement Rate
Your engagement rate is the best way to tell how well your audience is responding to the content that you shared. If your audience connects with what you shared, they’ll let you know by liking, commenting, sharing, and saving your content.
If you utilize a scheduling tool to plan your Instagram content like Later, Planoly, Hootsuite, or Plann, the tool you use might offer detailed analytics including engagement rate so you don’t have to do it yourself.
If you do need to calculate engagement rate yourself, use the following calculation:
Total number of likes & comments / number of followers x 100
This will give you your engagement rate percentage. Depending on your follower count, the average engagement rate can differ, but the higher your percentage is, the better. If you do notice your engagement rate is low, or dipping a little, it could be a few different things including you’re not posting at the right time or your content isn’t resonating with your followers.
Instagram Story Views
One of the best ways to build a strong relationship with your community is through Instagram Stories. With so many ways to creatively post and share what you’re doing in real-time, sharing content to Stories will help keep your audience engaged and bring your account top of mind.
Instagram Stories also has analytics that you can track to tell how your content is performing and what’s resonating with your audience. These insights include view count, replies, impressions, and navigations. By monitoring these insights, you’ll be able to determine the types of content that holds the attention of your audience so that you can create/share more of that content.
Instagram Reels Engagement
Video content is the future of Instagram and whether or not we like that, we do need to adjust our strategies to ensure the continued growth of our accounts. With Instagram Reels, you can share all sorts of captivating content that not captures your brand, but also gives you a surefire way to increase your reach.
With Instagram Reels still being so new, there still isn’t a ton of analytics available, but it’s gotten better since the feature first launched. In addition to Reel plays, you can also view insights pertaining to the number of comments, likes, saves, and interactions a Reel gets. And most recently, the platform rolled out reach analytics!
Growth
In your Instagram insights, you can view your growth metrics to keep track of how many users have followed and unfollowed you each day. While you can certainly keep a ballpark number on your growth, having these exact numbers pertaining to specific days gives more insight into the type of content that helps grow your reach and audience.
While keeping an eye on your account growth is important, don’t get too hung up on it! Your follower count can fluctuate for so many different reasons and it’s better to have a small number of really engaged followers than a large number of followers that aren’t. An engaged audience is much more valuable, especially when working with brands!
Post Saves
With Instagram saves, Instagram users can save a post to refer back to in the future, almost like bookmarking a webpage in your browser. This is typically going to be content that your audience finds helpful and informative. The most common types of posts that get saved by users are motivational quotes, recipes, travel destinations, and yourself posts with tips or educational resources.
Post Shares
When it comes to getting more eyeballs on your content, share insights are what you’re going to want to pay attention to. Whether a user shares a piece of content with another user on Instagram or they share it to their Instagram Story, this insight will tell you exactly how many times a specific piece of content was shared. By keeping an eye on this number, you’ll get a better sense of the types of content that resonates with your audience to a point that they want to discuss it with someone else.
If you capitalize on this information, you’ll be able to reach even more users, grow your following, and increase affiliate sales.
Instagram not your thing? Contact us today to learn more about our social media management services!
P.S. The Best Affiliate Programs for Bloggers
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