For brands wanting to grow their Instagram accounts, there's no better place to start than with Instagram Insights.

Also known as Instagram Analytics, these detailed insights take the guesswork out of your social media marketing strategy. 

Not only can they give you detailed information about your follower demographics and content interactions, but they can also show you which posts perform best with your audience.

Some of the ways you can take your brand to the next level using Instagram Insights include:

• Refining your content strategy.

• Finding new, engaged followers.

• Learning what the best times to post are.

• Planning campaigns and promotions more strategically.

Although the key metrics that Instagram Insights provide are powerful, making sense of them can be overwhelming.

In this article, we take a closer look at what Instagram Insights are, as well as how to access and understand them. 

Using practical examples, we’ll also show you how to use demographic data and post analytics from Instagram Insights to drive better results on your brand’s social media channels.

Firstly, what are Instagram Insights?

Instagram Insights is a powerful native analytics tool provided by Instagram. 

You don't need any additional apps or social media software—all the information you need is already in the Instagram app!

Instagram Insights makes it easy for brands to:

• Compare how different content types perform.

• Measure the effectiveness of their campaigns.

• Measure the performance of each post.

Ultimately, these metrics are designed to help people only post the most relevant content for the right audience demographics, at the best time of the day or week. 

This is crucial for your brand’s social media marketing efforts and your business's digital strategy at large. Keep reading to find out why!

Before being able to access detailed statistics on Instagram Insights, you'll need to convert your Instagram account to an Instagram Business Account.

Here's how to switch your Instagram account to a Business Account:

Step 1: In the app, go to your profile and press "Settings."

Step 2: Tap "Account."

Step 3: Once you're in your Account Settings, scroll to the bottom of the page. You'll see a call-to-action button that says "Switch to Professional Account."

Step 4: Follow Instagram's steps to set up your Business Account and viola! You're done.

How Do I Access Instagram Insights?

Instagram allows users to post a range of various content types to different areas of the app. These content types include:

• In-feed static images.

• In-feed slideshows.

• In-feed videos/GIFs.

• Stories static images.

• Stories videos.

• Stories polls.

• Reels videos.

Say, for example, your online pot plant business has been using design resources to create beautiful static images for your feed.

When you check out your Instagram Insights, you realize that your videos on Instagram Stories are actually getting the most views and engagement.

This helpful insight enables you to revisit your Instagram marketing strategy. Then, you can focus on creating more high-performing content types.

You'll also be able to view insights on which content themes perform best with your audience.

Sticking with the example of your brand that sells pot plants online, perhaps you thought that practical guides on how to care for plants would perform well.

With Instagram Insights, you’re able to see that your brand’s best-performing content is actually beautifully framed shots of rare plants.

With this information, you could decide to post fewer how-to guides and more beautiful photos to keep your followers engaged.

Instagram Insights for Beginners

With so many key metrics and analytics to consider, making sense of your brand’s Instagram Insights can make your head spin.

But, understanding what they mean is vital for using them to drive your brand’s growth.

Below, we’ll look at some of the most relevant Instagram Insights to help you understand what they mean, why they’re used, and why they’re so important for brands to keep track of.

Accounts Reached

This shows you how many accounts have seen your content, and provides some demographic data about them.

Remember, this refers to the total number of unique accounts that viewed your content.

These people might not follow your business on Instagram (yet!), and they may not have interacted with your content by liking, commenting, or sharing it.

Profile Visits

This refers to how many unique accounts looked at your Instagram profile after seeing your content.

The higher this number, the better—it means your post was interesting enough for them to want to explore further.

Impressions

While reach shows how many unique accounts viewed your content, impressions show how many times your content was viewed in total.

For example, if a single user viewed your content four times, it would count as four impressions but only one reach.

Accounts Engaged

Accounts engaged shows you the total number of accounts that interacted with your Instagram content.

Instagram provides key metrics that show you the top cities, countries, age ranges, and genders that interacted with your content.

Accounts engaged is an important ranking factor for the Instagram algorithm. When it sees your high-quality content performing well, it's likely to show it to more users.

Content Interactions

This shows you how many times Instagram users liked, commented on, or shared your post.

This key metric is the most common one businesses will use to analyse whether their content performed well.

Total Followers

This shows you how many followers your account has on Instagram.

Importantly, it also shows you the number of times users have unfollowed you—a crucial key metric to see whether a new design, messaging, or product is performing poorly.

Here, you can also see the top locations, age ranges, genders, and the most active times (when your followers are online).

Which Instagram Insights Should You Focus On?

With so many Instagram Insights to keep track of, it can be challenging to know which ones you really need to pay attention to.

Your first instinct might be to try to improve all metrics at once. Not only can this be really difficult, but it can also lead to an unexpected challenge.

If you make too many changes to your Instagram content at once, how will you know which changes were effective?

That’s why we recommend zoning in on the main metrics one by one.

That way, if you see improvement in your content’s performance, you'll understand exactly which change was responsible for this.

To help you figure out which metrics to focus on, we've looked at four of the most important ones for your brand:

• Your brand’s engagement rates.

• Your audience demographics.

• Instagram follower growth.

• Website click-through rates.

Your Brand's Engagement Rates

Your brand's engagement rates are usually considered the most important metric in social media marketing.

This shows you how frequently your followers engage with your content, and the higher this number is, the better!

Your Audience Demographics

Audience research is not only one of the most important aspects of your social media marketing strategy, but of your business in general.

After all, if you don't know your audience, it's impossible to tailor your strategy, content, and services or products to their needs and interests.

Instagram Follower Growth

Your follower growth is another vital metric to track to ensure your Instagram content is effective and that it resonates with your audience.

Research shows that the average rate of Instagram follower growth is 1.69% per month—but don't worry if you aren't consistently reaching that target!

It's important to keep track of your follower count month-to-month so you can gain insight into your average growth per quarter or year.

If you gain a large number of followers in one month, you can identify what content was likely to drive people to follow you.

In most cases, a particularly effective campaign, competition, or influencer partnership can see your follower count skyrocket.

On the other hand, a poorly-timed post that left a negative impression on your followers might cause a large number of users to unfollow you.

Having this insight allows you to do some damage control and reassess your Instagram strategy to prevent your account from losing further followers.

If you lose a few followers each month, this isn't necessarily a cause for concern.

Some Instagram users may unfollow an account that doesn't post regularly, posts too much, or posts content that is no longer relevant to them.

As long as your general follower growth trends upwards, you're on the right track!

Website Click-Through Rates

There are various ways you can drive website traffic through Instagram, and it's best practice to use as many of them as possible:

• Add your website link into your Instagram bio.

• Create a call-to-action button that links to your website. However, this is only available for boosted posts.

• Create Instagram ads with a website or landing page button.

• If you sell a physical product, add product tags with Instagram Shopping.

• Add a website link to your Instagram Stories. This is only available to accounts with 10,000 or more followers.

Your click-through rate (often referred to by its abbreviation, CTR) shows you how many unique accounts clicked on the button to find out more about your brand.

If you have a high click-through rate, it shows that your content was high-quality, with a great value proposition, and a strong call-to-action. Well done!

If your post has a low click-through rate, this could be a cause for concern and you might want to re-examine aspects of your content and strategy, including:

• Whether your call-to-action is strong enough.

• Whether your product or service offering is clear to an audience.

• Whether your design and photography are high-quality and appealing to your audience.

• Whether your boosting strategy is targeting the right user demographic.

Want to Leave Instagram Insights to the Pros?

Using Instagram Insights to drive results for your brand can be as simple or as complex as you make it.

But, the more knowledge and information you have, the more you will be able to adapt your social media marketing strategy to resonate with your audience.

If this all sounds like gibberish to you and you'd rather focus on business and leave Instagram marketing to the pros, you're in the right place! That's exactly what we're here for.