How to Interpret Your Instagram Insights to Grow Your Business

Let’s start with something controversial, shall we? 

If you’re going to spend hours of your precious time creating Instagram posts without taking 30 minutes a month to review your Instagram insights, stop posting. 

You’re wasting your time. 

Because just like posting without a strategy is a waste of time, posting without reviewing your Instagram insights to see what’s working is a waste of time. It’s like throwing a dart in the dark, or whatever that saying is. The point is, you’re highly unlikely to achieve your goal. 

But you know this already, because you’re here reading this blog post. You know that interpreting your Instagram insights will tell you what posts are growing your business and which posts are not. You know that this information allows you to create more effective content in less time. Which means you can get back to doing what you love – running your business – because I doubt you launched a superfood snack brand to become a marketing manager for a superfood snack brand. 

Okay enough intro, let’s get into how to interpret your Instagram insights so you can actually grow your business! 

To find your Instagram insights, make sure you have a creator or business account. 

1. Navigate to your Instagram profile. 
2. Tap the hamburger menu in the top right corner, then tap Insights.

Instagram Followers

Instagram followers are the people who’ve followed your account. They’re your community and they’ll eventually be your customers.

The #1 thing I want you to communicate is that not all followers are equal. If you have the time, I highly recommend removing spam and bot accounts or followers who simply aren’t your target audience. These followers won’t be engaging with your content, which hinders your overall account performance. Instagram will notice that your own followers aren’t engaged so it won’t show your content to new accounts that don’t follow you. 

• How to Interpret Followers: If you’re consistently growing an engaged list of followers, you’re doing great. If not, there’s a few potential problems. It could be that your content isn’t reaching enough new people (more on that below). It could be that your content isn’t engaging enough to encourage people to follow you. It could be that your Instagram profile is unclear – so when people see your account, they aren’t convinced they should follow.

Instagram Reach

Instagram reach is the number of people who’ve seen your posts. 

When you’re looking at an individual Instagram post the reach is the number of people who’ve seen that post. 

And when you’re looking at your Instagram account reach, it’s the number of people who’ve seen all your posts – grid posts, stories, reels – in a specific period of time. 

• How to Interpret Reach: If your Instagram reach is going up then your content is reaching more people. This means your posts are eye-catching and engaging. It also means you should be growing your Instagram followers. If your Instagram reach is going down, your content is reaching less people, which means something is amiss. Your content needs adjustments to be more effective. 

Instagram Impressions

Instagram impressions are the total number of times your posts have been viewed. It often gets confused with reach, so here’s an example. If one person views your post three times, then your reach is 1 and your impressions are 3. 

A post will always have more impressions than reach. If the number of impressions is significantly higher than the reach, it means people are referring back to your post. This happens a lot with informative graphics, recipes, and tutorials. 

• How to Interpret Impressions: Impressions indicate brand awareness and allow you to compare campaign performance. If a post has significantly more impressions than another, it tells you what kind of posts your community is referring back to, and therefore what kind of content to create more of. 

Instagram Profile Visits

Instagram profile visits tell you what content, campaigns, or collaborations are bringing more people to your Instagram profile. They’re likely to increase during a product launch and decrease during a week of little to no posting. 

• How to Interpret Profile Visits: Use profile visits to track what content, campaigns, or collaborations are bringing more people to your Instagram profile. You can also compare profile visits to followers because if your profile visits are increasing, but your followers aren’t, then something is amiss. You could be attracting the wrong audience, maybe your content is inconsistent, or maybe your Instagram profile needs work. 

Instagram Website Taps

Instagram website taps are the number of times people have clicked on your link in bio.

It will vary depending on your content, but should be tracked weekly and monthly. This number is especially important for businesses who are focused on growing their email list, website traffic, and sales. 

• How to Interpret Website Taps: If your website taps are increasing, you’re on the right track. If they aren’t, either your call to actions aren’t very effective or your content isn’t convincing enough to spark an action in the viewer. Try using stronger CTAs (even in your profile!) and take a look at what posts are driving the most website taps. 

Instagram Content Interactions

Instagram content interactions is just a longer way to say engagements. Your content interactions include post likes, comments, saves, and shares. Each post has a total number of content interactions and your Instagram account will have a weekly and monthly amount of content interactions. 

• How to Interpret Content Interactions: If your content interactions are increasing, you can rest easy that your content is engaging to your community. If you’re focused on increasing a specific content interaction, know that shares are a good metric to track if you want to increase your Instagram reach or impressions. If your content interactions are dropping, this means your content isn’t engaging your community – at least not enough for them to engage with it. Even though they may like your post, that’s not necessarily enough for them to physically ‘like’ it. Try these effective strategies for increasing your Instagram engagement. 

>> If you liked this post, you’ll love this one. 
>> For the biz owners who want an aesthetically pleasing, easy to fill in social media report, this one’s for you.

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