Top Instagram Metrics Your Business Should Analyze

As of May 2022, Instagram had well over one billion estimated monthly active users around the world–securing this photo-sharing app’s spot as one of the top social media platforms currently in existence. Countless businesses of all sizes take advantage of Instagram’s mass following to market their products and services via this ultra-popular social media platform.

Like the algorithms on most of the top social media platforms, Instagram’s algorithm is always changing. This changing algorithm can have a major impact on whether your business’s Instagram posts meet their target audience, so it is one of the top reasons why it is important to track the metrics of your business’s Instagram account in order to measure the performance of your business’s Instagram marketing campaign over time as you implement different strategies.

Tracking and analyzing these metrics allow businesses to alter and adapt their Instagram marketing campaign in response to the success–or lack thereof–of the current social media marketing strategies they are utilizing for their campaign on Instagram. There are so many possible metrics to track and analyze, however, that it can be overwhelming to try to tackle any at all. The best strategy is usually to narrow down the metrics you choose to analyze based on their importance. Focus on carefully tracking and analyzing the metrics that make the most difference in the success of your marketing campaign, and leave the rest of the performance statistics on the back burner to keep an eye on when you have the time.

If you’re not sure which Instagram metrics are the most important for your business to analyze, don’t worry. Keep reading to learn more about the top Instagram metrics your business should track and analyze in order to secure the most success from your business’s Instagram marketing campaign.

1. Follower Growth Rate

You can’t necessarily determine the success of your business’s Instagram Even if the number of followers your business’s Instagram account maintains seems like a satisfactory number to you, it is important to remember that the growth rate of your business’s Instagram account’s followers is more important than the static number of followers that account maintains.

A high follower growth rate lets you know that your business is expanding its reach and gaining the attention of more potential customers over time, which is crucial in order for your business to be able to grow. The average monthly follower growth rate on Instagram is between 1.5% and 2.5%. If you really want to ensure that your Instagram marketing campaign is yielding successful results, you should aim for your business’s Instagram account’s follower growth rate to fall somewhere between 5% and 10% per month.

2. Engagement Rate

Engagement rate refers to the rate at which other Instagram users–primarily your followers–engage with your business’s Instagram posts and stories through likes, comments, reactions, and saves. The engagement rate is one of the most important indicators of the success of any Instagram marketing campaign.

You can calculate your engagement rate by dividing the total number of likes, comments, and reactions, and saves an individual Instagram post or story from your account receives by the number of followers you have. Then, multiply the number you get by 100 to get a clear-cut percentage. For example, if you received 50 likes, comments, reactions, and saves on an Instagram post and you have 1,000 followers, your engagement rate for that particular post would be 5%.

According to industry standard guidelines, a 5% engagement rate is high. An engagement rate of less than 1% is considered low, between 1% and 3.5% is considered average, between 3.5% and 6% is considered high, and more than 6% is considered very high. Understanding engagement rate guidelines and tracking the engagement rates of your business’s Instagram posts and stories can help you determine which types of posts and stories engage your followers the most and which are less successful at drawing in your follower’s attention.

3. Impressions

Impressions is another important metric to track on Instagram because–unlike engagement rate–it encompasses both Instagram posts that have received engagement and those that have not.

Impressions let you know how many people have seen your Instagram post–whether or not they ever actually interacted or engaged with the post. Approximately 70% of Instagram posts do not ever get seen by anyone. That is a huge percentage that is very important to keep in mind. Keeping that in mind, it is important to track and analyze

impressions for your business’s Instagram account in order to make sure that your posts are actually getting seen by other Instagram users–even if no one is engaging with them.

4. Website Traffic

One of the main goals of running marketing campaigns on social media platforms like Instagram is driving traffic to your business’s website. Therefore, tracking and analyzing the website traffic your Instagram activity catalyzes is an important part of measuring the success of your Instagram marketing campaign.

Instagram doesn’t actually offer an option to track website traffic. However, third-party platforms like Google Analytics are available to help you track and analyze the amount of website traffic that is driven directly from your business’s Instagram posts.

5. Trending Hashtags

Instagram posts that have at least one hashtag attached to them receive more than 12% more engagement than posts that do not have any hashtags attached to them at all.

Tracking popular hashtags and attaching those that are already trending to your business’s Instagram posts can help increase your audience and your engagement rate. However, be careful to only use hashtags that actually apply to your posts in order to avoid coming off as disingenuous to your followers–as that will not help your engagement and could even cause you to lose some followers.

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