22 Jul Native Instagram Analytics Are Here…Sort Of
If you are like the members of the analytics team here at Ignite Social Media, you’ve been anticipating the release of an official Instagram analytics platform ever since Facebook purchased the platform for a nice, round $1 billion. It’s taken four years for a native analytics offering from the tool, but it’s here! In this post, we’re going to “unbox” Instagram Insights and show you what we’ve all been waiting for.
Instagram Insights
The Good: Instagram Insights Exists! Yay! Finally some native data and insights into follower demographics.
The Bad: It is far less comprehensive than its cousin, Facebook Insights.
The Useless: Instagram Insights is only available within the Instagram mobile app (Business accounts only) and there is no way to export the data, or make it scalable when pulling reports.
Instagram Post Metrics
Inside the Instagram app, you can look at post-level metrics by clicking on “View Insights” under the post. The reported metrics include:
Impressions: “The total number of times your post has been seen.”
Reach: “The number of unique accounts that have seen your post.”
Engagement: “Number of likes and comments on your post”
It’s no surprise to see Impressions and Reach offered considering the metrics provided by Facebook Insights. It is strange that they do not offer the “engaged users” number that Facebook Insights provides. (Engaged users is the number of unique users who engaged with your posts).
Here is a grain of salt
Take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt because we have a very small sample of posts to analyze. It looks like roughly 6-10% of Instagram followers are currently being reached by posts. This is much higher than what Facebook content is currently seeing at ~1%. Based on Facebook’s newsfeed adjustment trend, it’s fair to guess that this will be as high as it gets with the Instagram feed algorithm.
You might find yourself saying “Thanks Ryan, but what else is included in Post Metrics?” Well, dear reader, nothing more. Let’s move on!
Instagram Account Insights
You can get to Insights by clicking on the bar chart between the account name and the gear at the top of the Instagram app (as long as the account you’re in is an Instagram for Business account).
Immediately, we’re greeted by how many impressions have been served this week with an option to swipe and to see how the reach that was generated for the week as well.
Under the “Impressions/Reach” widget, the app displays the “Top Posts in the Last 7 Days”. On which, you can click to “See More”. The “Top Posts” feature allows you to filter your posts by:
- post type
- metric options
- impressions
- reach
- engagement
- likes
- comments
- and… no views anywhere to be seen 🙁
- time length options
- 7 days
- 30 days
- 3 months
- 1 year
- 2 years
The most useful feature of the new Instagram Insights platform is the Followers data. It shows follower activity (average times your followers are on Instagram in a typical day) by hour and you can click to “See More”, resulting in a display that provides:
- Total follower count
- Gender breakdown of followers
- Age range
- Top locations by city and country
- Follower activity by hour and day of the week
This is the most data we’ve been able to gather about Instagram followers, so any little bit helps. The activity by day and hour is great for community managers when planning content for the week.
In Summary
Instagram Insights has some useful features, providing community managers with helpful information when it comes to planning content. Unfortunately, the offering has a long way to go when it comes to reporting.
What are your thoughts? Is Instagram’s analytics offering living up to your expectations or leaving you disappointed?
