Instagram Metrics You Should Track To Measure Performance
Today, social media marketing is an essential part of every digital marketing strategy. Keeping track of the most significant Instagram metrics is vital to growing your account and building an engaged community.
With over 1.393 billion active users, Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms. Plus, it’s also the most powerful social media platform for businesses in terms of branding.
Same as the other social media platforms, it makes no sense to use Instagram for business if you aren’t tracking performance and watching results like conversions or click-through rates.
So, we give you the most important metrics you need to track to measure the success of your Instagram business account.
Follower Growth Rate
A high follower number may add brand credibility, however, it doesn’t say much about the soundness of your Instagram marketing strategy. In contrast, your follower growth rate provides you with a pretty good idea of whether your brand is expanding its reach.
Simply put, the way your number of followers changes is usually more important than the exact number of Instagram followers when measuring your account’s performance.
For example, assume you acquire 60 new followers monthly. If you have 600 followers, that means your growth rate is 10%—which is great.
But, if you have 6000 followers and acquire 60 new followers in a month, your follower growth rate is just 1%. This metric suggests that your Instagram marketing is idle, and it’s time to test a new strategy.
Instagram Engagement (Per Follower)
A staggering 70% of Instagram posts never get seen by users. You may have 1 million followers, but that won’t drive you any new sales if they don’t perceive and engage with your posts.
With Instagram’s continuously upgraded algorithm, engagement is more significant than ever to make sure your posts are noticed. Tracking your engagement (per follower) will let you realize how interested your audience is.
This metric is great if you’re assessing a partnership with an influencer because you don’t want to pay for a sponsored post without any actual engagement. You should calculate your engagement metrics on a weekly or monthly basis. Don’t attempt to track it on a daily basis, because normal day-to-day variations will likely shake off the data.
Stories Engagement
Instagram Stories are different from standard content since they vanish after 24 hours. The vanishing mode makes the feature a bit more challenging for tracking engagement.
You can track this metric with Instagram’s own analytics tool, which is known as ‘Insights’. Bear in mind that you’ll need a business account on Instagram to access Insights.
There are two key metrics you should focus on when it comes to Instagram Stories – views and exits. The ‘views’ inform you how many unique users watched your Story. The ‘exits’ inform you which slide viewers were on at the moment they exited your story.
The exits are a good way to determine what holds your audience’s attention and what doesn’t. If you notice a lot of exits on a specific slide, try to understand why so many people lost interest at that point.
Comments Per Post
Likes on Instagram are satisfying, but comments are far more valuable in relation to engagement. It just takes a second to click ‘like’, but leaving a comment demands more time and thought.
Once somebody leaves you a comment, it demonstrates that you’ve really caught their attention and connected with them somehow. Having said that, the number of comments you get is a crucial metric to track.
Monitor your average number of comments, and observe if it goes up or down. If the average number has gone down, aim to understand why your followers are less engaged than before.
Website Traffic
Instagram is more restricting than other social platforms when it comes to driving traffic to your site since you can’t add clickable links to posts. Alternatively, Instagram only allows a link in bio, and accounts with over 10.000 followers can add swipe-up links in their stories.
You may monitor the number of website visitors from Instagram with the help of Google Analytics, which sections your traffic into default channel categories, one of which is ‘Social’.
If you navigate to ‘Acquisition’ then ‘Channels’ and click ‘Social’ in your Google Analytics account, you will see precisely which social accounts drive traffic to your website.
Final Words
There’s no doubt that Instagram is a great social media channel to market your brand. It’s entertaining, gives you a creative outlet, and lets you engage with your followers.
However, if you want your Instagram marketing to be profitable and gainful, your marketing efforts should track the right metrics. Focus on these five main Instagram metrics to get a clear picture of how your ongoing strategy is functioning and how to improve it.
