“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.” – Peter Drucker
Evaluating your key performance indicators (KPIs) is critical for gauging whether or not your social media efforts are a success. After all, your ability to convert your audiences into loyal customers on any social network is dependent on how well you optimize for the right data and results.
To help you understand the health of your accounts, all social media platforms provide their users with some type of native tool for analyzing key metrics and analytics. On Instagram, that tool is Instagram Insights. You can access Instagram Insights via the app from your business account. Instagram Insights is not available at this time for use with most personal accounts nor can it be located on a desktop, which is why we highly recommend that you classify your account with Instagram as business rather than personal.
Once you’re in there, you’ll find a basic summary of your overall account’s and your individual posts’ performance data. For more robust, in-depth analysis of your account and your competitors’ accounts, posts, stories, videos, hashtags, etc., you’ll need to use an alternative tool such as Social Buddy’s free Instagram Analyzer (IA). Social Buddy’s IA can also be used with both your personal and business IG accounts and is accessible via desktop applications.
The ABCs of KPIs
While having all this data available is crucial, it’s only valuable if you know which metrics matter the most for your business. To help you recognize which KPIs are essential to monitor, we’ve put together a list of the fundamental metrics to follow. Let’s dive in.
Overall Account Metrics
Your overall account data includes metrics such as followers, reach, impressions, followers per hour and per day, demographics, views, website clicks CTAs, call/email clicks CTAs, mentions, Bio hashtags, etc. Two essential metrics to track are:
Audience Growth (Followers)
The real advantage in monitoring this metric lies in knowing what your business’s potential reach is for comparison. Naturally, profiles with more followers get seen by more people. Two indicators to look at monthly are slowdowns for the possible need for marketing ramp-ups and spikes for possible opportunities for replications in actions.
Referral Traffic (Call to Actions)
The most important metric to track in monitoring your CTAs’ performance is the click-through rate. Evaluating high and low performing CTAs over time will help you to optimize future CTA’s performances.
Content Metrics
Your content data (posts, stories, videos, IGTV, etc.) includes metrics such as engagement, comments, likes, reach, impressions, views, videos’ and stories’ exits, hashtags, etc. Some of the key metrics to track include:
Audience Engagement (Comments Received)
The number of likes is useful to track, but comments are a better measure as to how engaging your content is. Increases indicate that your building loyal following while stagnant or declining rates could be signs that your followers aren’t resonating with your content.
Engagement Per Follower
The engagement per follower metric is perfect for small/mid-size businesses because it shows ratios as opposed to volume. Just like the metric that counts the number of engagements (likes, comments, etc.), when this metric is increasing, it shows that your content is relevant to your audience.
Outbound Hashtag Performance
We all know that using hashtags makes your content on Instagram more discoverable. There are a few hashtag metrics that you can analyze however, tracking your hashtags’ engagement rates will help you to discover which hashtags are earning you the most traffic.
Competitor Metrics
One of the key advantages of using a tool like Social Buddy’s free Instagram Analyzer is that you’re able to see essential metrics for your competitors as well. Competitor summaries are not available in Instagram Insights. Tracking your competitors’ profile growth, hashtag usage, engagement rates, etc. will help you to gain a better understanding of approaches that work and will aid you in benchmarking your own improvements to your efforts on Instagram.
The Bottom Line
With the abundance of data accessible to you through Instagram Insights and Social Buddy’s free Instagram Analyzer, you can become more metric-driven with your marketing efforts on Instagram than ever before. By analyzing this data, you will be better equipped to make more informed decisions on future improvements.
For more information on how we can help to build your audience on Instagram and leverage the platform for growth, contact us today.