Building your online presence is an exciting time in the life of your brand. With the growth of social media for business over the past 5 years, in particular, there is more analytics to keep track of than ever before. But, with more data can also come more confusion. What metrics should you be tracking on Instagram and why track metrics in the first place?
Why track certain metrics?
The right metrics and tracking them is crucial in guiding your content strategy. You need to keep an eye on how content is performing and let this inform how you go about creating content in the future.
While there are plenty of metrics you can track of, we believe these 4 are really important when it comes to your content strategy and production.
Reach
Knowing your reach is one of the first steps to knowing how to grow your Instagram following and create valuable content.
“Reach” refers to the total number of times that an Instagram user’s post, story, or promotion has been uniquely viewed. It’s important to be aware that this also includes ad activity which is generated through Instagram’s API, Facebook ads, and the promote feature.
Knowing your reach is a huge step in keeping track of your Instagram presence. It shows you exactly how many people are actually seeing your content and if they are finding it valuable. As you post, you’ll be able to see a correlation between certain types of posts and spikes in your reach. As your reach metric grows, you’ll know you’re on the right track with your content. If you don’t see steady growth in your reach metric over time, it might be time to reevaluate your approach and strategy.
Impressions
Your impressions are the total number of times that your Instagram object – meaning post, story, or promotion – was viewed. To break it down simply: It’s the total amount of views your content is getting.
One of the key reasons to keep track of this metric is to see what types of content are getting the most views and interest, although it may be several impressions by the same person. If you notice certain types of posts are getting higher impression statistics than others, try replicating that type of content as much as possible. That will help grow your impressions and your presence.
Engagement Rate
Similar to your impressions, the engagement rate is the total number of times a post was liked, saved, or commented on in relation to the number of impressions on that post. There are many ways to calculate this.
The Engagement/Followers Formula
This will show you a percentage of engagement based on your followers. Use the following formula:
Engagement Rate = (Likes + Comments)/Followers x 100
The Engagement/Impressions Formula
Another great way to analyze the health of your account is with the engagement/impressions formula, which is slightly more accurate and takes into account the number of people who actually saw your post versus your number of followers, some of whom may have missed it.
Engagement Rate = (Likes + Comments)/Impressions x 100
The True Engagement/Impressions Formula
The key difference with this formula is that it takes into account the number of times your post was saved, along with the number of likes and comments. This formula is our recommendation!
Engagement Rate = (Likes + Comments + Saved)/Impressions x 100
All these formulas are great for different measurements. It really comes down to what your goal is for your account. The important thing about your engagement rate is that it shows how valuable your content is to your viewers. Track it to know which posts are seen as the most valuable and use those as an inspiration for future posts.
Website Clicks
With this metric, you are tracking the total number of times in a given period of time that users are clicking the link in your bio. While this may seem like a metric that won’t show how healthy your account is, it’s actually tracking how many times people are taking the next step and following through on your call to action. If you are finding that your website clicks are stagnating or going down, try using a different approach with your call to action, or make it a stronger call to action.
If you think of your Instagram account as a plant, it’s easy to think about it in terms of health. For a healthy account, you want followers, obviously, but you also want those followers engaging with your posts and, ideally, following through on a call to action. Keep track of these metrics and you’ll be able to know your next steps to grow your Instagram account, keeping it alive and thriving!
