How to Use Insights on Instagram to Grow Your Account

There are a lot of things that go into being successful on Instagram. But if you want to really take your account to the next level, you need to start using insights.

As a marketer, insights on Instagram can be extremely valuable to you and your brand. By understanding what users are saying about your brand, you can adjust your Instagram marketing strategy accordingly. Additionally, Instagram insights can help you identify emerging trends that could be beneficial to your business.

Without insights on Instagram, you're essentially flying blind. Without this data, it's difficult to know what's working and what isn't. Insights can help you make better decisions about your content strategy, and ultimately help you grow your IG following and engagement. 

In this post, we’ll give you a comprehensive idea of what insights on Instagram is and how you can use it to grow your account.

What is Instagram Insights?

Instagram Insights is a powerful tool that provides detailed information about your Instagram account and followers. While you do have several third-party analytics tools like Sprout Social, you can learn a lot about your audience and their behavior via Instagram’s built-in Insights feature.

With Insights, you can track your progress, learn more about your audience, and see what's working well for your account. Insights can help you to better understand your followers and grow your business on Instagram.

Who Should Use Instagram Insights?

Instagram Insights provides detailed information about your followers, your posts, and your overall performance on the platform. This data can be incredibly valuable in helping you to better understand your audience, optimize your content, and track your progress over time.

If you're serious about using Instagram for business or professional purposes, then you need to be using Insights. Here's a look at some of the different types of accounts that can benefit from this tool:

• Brands and businesses of all sizes
• Influencers and content creators
• Solopreneurs and freelance professionals
• Artists and photographers
• Anyone who wants to understand their audience better and perform better on Instagram!

What Are the Benefits of Using Insights on Instagram?

Sure, we all know that Instagram Insights is a great way to get insights into our posts and see how our content is performing. But what about the benefits of using Insights beyond just post-level data? 

Here are three benefits of using Insights that you may not have considered:

1. Insights Can Help You Understand Your Audience Better

Instagram Insights provides detailed information on who your followers are, including their age, gender, location, and even when they're most active on Instagram. 

This information can be incredibly valuable in understanding who your target audience is and how to best reach them.

In a nutshell, here are a few main things you can learn from Instagram Insights:

Who Is Your Audience?

You can use Insights to get an idea of who your audience is and what they're interested in. For example, you can see the age range and gender breakdown of your followers. This information can help you tailor your content to better appeal to your target market.

When Are They Online?

Insights can also tell you when your followers are most active on Instagram. This information is important because it can help you determine when to post your content. If you know when your target market is most likely to be scrolling through their feed, you can make sure your content is front and center.

What Kind of Content Do They Like?

Finally, Insights can tell you what kind of content your followers engage with the most. This information is valuable because it can help you determine what type of content to create in the future. 

If you see that your followers respond well to videos, for example, you might want to consider creating more video content.

2. Insights Can Help You Improve Your Content Strategy

By understanding which of your posts are performing well and which aren't, you can start to adjust your content strategy accordingly. 

Insights can also help you see which hashtags are being used most often in relation to your account, so you can make sure you're using hashtags that will reach a wider audience. 

Data can be used to see overall post engagement and what time is best to post on Instagram.

Based on the response you get, you can also plan your content accordingly. You can create similar types of posts that get high engagement. With this information, you can make changes to your content strategy that will help you attract more followers and get more likes, comments, and shares. 

3. Insights Can Help You Track Your Progress Over Time

Instagram Insights provides detailed information about your growth over time, including how many new followers you've gained and how much engagement your posts are receiving. This information can be incredibly valuable and help you understand what's working well and what needs to be improved.

So if you're looking to get more out of your Instagram account, start by taking a look at your insights. It just might be the key to unlocking your next level of success.

What Can You Check Via Insights on Instagram If You Have a Professional Account?

As we already discussed, Instagram Insights has a goldmine of information for marketers, social media managers, and anyone who wants to grow their IG accounts. So, what exactly can you learn from Insights? 

Here are some insights that are available on Instagram:

• Recent Highlights: In this section, you can check any notable improvement in your account performance. You can select any timeframe within the past 90 days.
• Overview: This section gives a bird’s eye view of all the metrics available via Instagram Insights. This is what this section looks like on the Instagram mobile app:

• Accounts Reached and Accounts Engaged: These metrics give a detailed breakdown of the accounts you have engaged or reached, including top cities, countries, age ranges, and gender breakdown.
• Total Followers: You can learn about trends across your IG followers once you have at least 100 followers. In this section, you get to see the top locations of followers, growth, times when they are most active, and age range.
• Content You’ve Shared: In this section, you can see the content that you have published as Reels, Live videos, posts, and Stories. If you tap under each content type, you can see all the content for that category in your IG account. You can also filter the results based on the timeframe, reach, interactions, and media type.

Under the option for “View Insights,” you can also check insights that are specific to the chosen piece of content. It includes:

• Content Interactions: In this section, you can see likes, saves, comments, replies, and shares for each Instagram post.
• Accounts Engaged: This section shows the total number of accounts that have interacted with your IG account’s content. This metric is broken down into two categories: non-followers and followers. However, please note that you can only find data for IG Live videos, posts, and Stories in this section.
• Ad: If you have boosted your IG posts, you can track the responses on it in this section.

How to View Insights on Instagram: A Quick Guide

Now that you know its importance, it is time to discuss how you can access Instagram insights on your professional Instagram account. Before we dive into the details, please note that Instagram Insights are only available for business accounts on Instagram.

How to View Insights on your Instagram Posts

If you want to grow your audience on Instagram, you probably spend a lot of time thinking about your Instagram posts. What should you say? What photos should you use? How can you get more likes and followers?

But there's one thing that you might not be thinking about enough: your Insights.

Insights are the data that Instagram collects about your posts and your followers. And they can be really useful in helping you to fine-tune your content strategy.

For example, let's say that you're trying to decide between two different photos for your next post. You can use insights to see which one is likely to get more engagement from your followers.

Or, let's say that you're wondering whether you should post more often. Insights can help you to see how often your followers are on Instagram, and when they're most likely to see your posts.

To check insights for your IG posts, here are the steps you can follow:

Step 1: Log in to your Instagram profile.

Step 2: Click on a post that you'd like to view insights on.

Step 3: Tap the “View insights” option that you see below the image

That’s all! You should be able to check the total number of shares, saves, comments, and likes that your post received. 

Now, you'll be able to see how many likes, comments, saves, and shares your post got. You'll also see other Engagement and Post Interactions metrics, such as accounts reached.

How to View Insights on Your Instagram Stories

Instagram also provides detailed data for each IG Story that you upload. Here is a quick look at what IG Story Insights looks like:

To view Story Insights, here are the steps you can follow: 

Step 1: Tap on the profile picture that you see on the top of your profile. You’ll be able to see your Story.

Step 2: Swipe on the IG Story to see the total number of replies and shares you received. You will also see Post Interaction metrics along with Engagement metrics. 

Note: Don't freak out if your Instagram Insights numbers are a little behind. They're just taking their sweet time to populate. No need to refresh obsessively (we know you're tempted). Just sit back, relax, and enjoy the insights!

How to View Insights on Your Videos

Instagram is all about beautiful visuals, so it makes sense that videos are popular there. Videos also tend to be more personal than other types of content. 

When you watch a video, you feel like you're getting a peek into someone's life. And finally, videos are just plain fun. They're a great way to kill a few minutes (or hours) when you're bored.

Check out any post online on growing your Instagram presence, and you’ll find that they focus on creating engaging videos. If you want to level up your content game, you should focus on videos too.

Once you publish them, here is how you can view Insights to see how your audience is responding to your videos:

Step 1: Tap on the icon or click on your Instagram profile picture that you see on the bottom right corner of your screen.

Step 2: Tap on the icon that you see below your IG bio.

Step 3: Tap on the video that you want to check insights for.

Step 4: Tap on the    icon if you are an iPhone user or tap on the  icon if you’re an Android user. You’ll find these icon at the top of the Instagram video.

Step 5: Click on View Insights.

You'll also be able to see how many likes, comments, saves, and shares your video has now. Other Engagement and Post Interactions metrics displayed include Accounts Reached, view count, the average percent of video watched, and an audience retention graph.

Note: Only you can see the average percent watched by viewers and the audience retention line graph. Likes, comments, and view count are visible to people who watch your video just like they are in your Instagram Feed.

How to View Insights on your Instagram Reels

There's no denying it: Reels are addictive.

Sure, you can scroll through your feed and mindlessly consume content. But there's something about a Reel that makes you stop and watch. Maybe it's because they’re bite-sized, the way they're edited, or the fact that they usually have catchy music playing in the background.

But whatever the reason, Reels are one of the most popular features on Instagram right now. And people can't get enough of them.

If you want to be popular on Instagram, Reels should be your best friend. Make more Reels to captivate your audience’s attention and get them hooked to your content. Plus, the platform now even provides insights so you can check how your Reels are faring.

Step 1: Go to your Instagram profile and click on the Reels tab.

Step 2: Select the Instagram Reel for which you want to view the metrics.

Step 3: Tap on View Insights below the IG Reel.

Now, you'll be able to see how many comments, likes, shares, and saves your post has received. You'll also notice other Engagement and Post Interactions metrics such as accounts reached and plays displayed.

Take note that insights are also accessible through your overall account insights. You may view them by going to your profile and clicking the Insights action button or tapping Insights under the icon.

Another thing you should note is that only Reels uploaded on or after May 14, 2021, will have Reels insights.

How to View Insights on your Instagram Live Videos

For businesses and influencers looking to connect with their audience on a more personal level, live video is becoming an increasingly popular choice. And it's not hard to see why.

Well, for one thing, live video is incredibly intimate. It allows viewers to feel like they're right there with the person or brand, experiencing everything in real-time. This level of intimacy is something that simply can't be replicated with pre-recorded videos or photos.

Another reason live video is so popular is that it's unedited and raw. In a world where we're constantly bombarded with airbrushed images and perfectly curated feeds, it's refreshing to see something that's real and unpolished.

Unlike other forms of content, live video allows for two-way communication. Viewers can comment and ask questions in real-time, and you can respond accordingly. This interaction creates a sense of community and connection that is difficult to achieve with other types of content.

What’s more, now you can also check how users are responding to your live videos. Here is what the Insights section looks like:

If you want to see how well your Instagram live videos perform, here are some steps you should follow:

Step 1: Tap on the Insights action button on your Instagram profile.

Step 2: Find the live video you want to check insights for under the section on “Content You’ve Shared.”

Step 3: You can also tap on the Insights option after you finish your Instagram live. 

Please note that the insights for live videos may take some time to appear after your live video has ended. You'll also be able to view the number of comments and shares your live video received. Other Engagement and Post Interaction measures, such as accounts reached and peak concurrent viewers, will also be presented.

Live insights will be available for live videos created on or after May 24, 2021.

FAQs

Ready to Make the Most of Insights on Instagram?

As you can see, there is a lot that you can learn from Instagram Insights. There are many benefits to using Insights on Instagram. With this information, you can better understand what your audience is interested in and how to better engage with them. 

By taking the time to understand what Insights are and how to use them, you can vastly improve your Instagram strategy and better connect with your audience. So go forth and start Insights-ing!

Do you have any questions about using Instagram insights? Please feel free to mention them in the comments section. I’ll be happy to answer them for you.