How to check audience on instagram
Ultimate Guide to Posts, Videos, Stories, Reels & more!
If you want to grow your Instagram account, taking a look at your Instagram analytics (also known as "Insights") is a great place to start.
Instagram analytics can help you target the right audience, improve your content strategy, and reach new audiences.
But learning all of the different Instagram metrics and terms, and how to use this data for growth, is no mean feat.
In our Ultimate Guide to Instagram Analytics, we’ll walk through what each metric means, and how you can use this knowledge to build a winning content strategy.
Why Instagram Analytics MatterInstagram analytics are the best way to understand who your audience is, when they’re most active, and what type of content they engage with the most.
This level of insight is hugely important for creating a content strategy that drives results for your brand or business — without it, you’re essentially working in the dark.
However, finding the right metrics to track, as well as knowing how to interpret them, can be easier said than done.
Every brand or business has its own unique goals (from growing a follower count to increasing clicks and conversions) which means that the most important metrics differ on a case-by-case basis.
Once you’ve clarified your goals, you’ll be able to get so much more from your Instagram Analytics — as you’ll have clear objectives to monitor in your social media reporting.
Discover how to use Later's Instagram Analytics tools to fuel your growth in this quick video tutorial:
How to Access Instagram InsightsInstagram Insights (Instagram's in-app analytics) are only available to business or creator profiles, which is just one of the many reasons we recommend switching to an Instagram business or creator profile.
Once you have an Instagram business or creator profile, you can easily access your analytics through the Insights tab in the Instagram app.
Start by tapping on the menu icon in the top right corner of your profile, and then click on Insights tab, which will open the analytics for your business or creator profile. Alternately, you can tap the Insights button on your profile page.
Once you open your Insights, you’ll be able to find a ton of metrics and analytics for your posts, stories, and audience demographics.
NOTE: Instagram can only show you analytics for posts and stories that were published after you switched to a business or creator profile.
How to Access Analytics With Later’s Analytics DashboardAlongside Instagram’s native analytics, Later’s Instagram Analytics feature gives you a visual overview of how your posts and stories are performing – all in an easy-to-use dashboard.
You’ll find all of the must-have analytics from Instagram in a digestible format, as well as several extra data points — including your best time to post (available on Growth and Advanced plans).
You can track up to 12 months worth of Instagram feed posts and stories, so you can see which have performed best — and filter by all the key metrics, such as likes, reach, comments, and more.
Plus, Later’s Instagram Analytics have separate “Post Performance” and “Story Performance” dashboards — so you can see exactly how each channel is driving value for your brand.
Ready to start tracking your performance more efficiently? Sign up to Later and explore the Instagram Analytics dashboard today — now available for both Instagram business and creator accounts.
Part #1: How to Use Instagram Audience AnalyticsGetting to grips with your audience analytics is a great way to understand who you’re talking to — so you can tailor your content strategy and posting times accordingly.
Open the Insights tab in Instagram, scroll down to “Your Audience,” and tap “See All.”
From here, you’ll be able to see an overview of your follower breakdown for up to 90 days including:
Follower Growth (Overall, Follows, and Unfollows)
Top Locations (Cities and Countries)
Age Range (All, Men, and Women)
Gender
Most Active Times (Hours and Days)
Monitoring your follower growth over time, and comparing it with your content strategy, is a great way to understand what’s working for your account.
For example, if you notice a large uptick in followers after sharing an Instagram Reel, this is a valuable insight you can use to inform your future strategy.
TIP: If you’re looking to track your follower growth over a longer amount of time, Later’s Instagram Analytics track up to 12 months worth of data!
Key Metric: Top LocationsYou can also use Instagram Insights to get a better understanding of your audience – so you can get a better idea of your unique best time to post.
You can discover where your audience is based, as well as when they are most active; both valuable indicators for optimizing your Instagram posting strategy.
Later analyzed over 35M feed posts (excluding Reels and IGTV) to find the best time to post (in local times) for several regions. This can be used as a great starting point when used in combination with your unique audience top location insights.
You can also use Later’s Best Time to Post feature to automatically calculate your top 7 posting times based on your previous activity — then, you can easily set up posts at these optimal times with our Instagram Scheduler.
Upgrade to one of Later’s Starter, Growth or Advanced plans today and start capitalizing on your best times to post.
Part #2: Instagram Feed Post AnalyticsThere are 2 different ways to access feed post analytics in Instagram.
The first is through the Insights tab. Scroll down to “Content You Shared” and tap the arrow alongside your recent posts.
From here, you can sort up to 2 years of feed posts based on a whole range of metrics:
Call Button Taps
Comments
Email Button Taps
Follows
Get Directions Taps
Impressions
Likes
Post Interactions
Profile Visits
Reach
Saves
Text Button Taps
Video Views
Website Taps
NOTE: You may see even more options if you have Instagram’s Shopping features enabled (more on this later).
This is a great way to gain a holistic view of the content that has performed best over a set period of time — which can help inform your strategy.
For a more detailed performance overview, tap “View Insights” beneath a published post. From here, you’ll be able to see all the main metrics, including:
Likes
Comments
Sends (Only available outside of Europe)
Saves
Interactions (Profile visits and Website clicks)
Discovery (Accounts reached and Follows)
Impressions (from hashtags, home, profile, and other)
Each metric provides valuable insight for your account. For example:
Likes, comments, and sends metrics are a great way to learn what posts encourage engagement from your community.
Saves often show what content resonates deeply with your audience, provides inspiration, or has lasting value.
Website clicks are a strong indicator that your followers were inspired to learn more about your product or service.
Impressions show how well your post is performing with the Instagram algorithm. For high performing posts, take note of where your impressions came from, the time and day of posting, and whether there’s any thematic content trends worth noting.
If you notice a lot of impressions in the “from hashtags” metric, this means you’re onto a winning formula with your hashtag strategy.
TIP: Get extra hashtag analytics with Later’s Detailed Hashtag Performance feature. Unlike Instagram’s native analytics, you can see the median number of likes, comments, impressions, saves, and reach per each individual hashtag you’ve used over the last 3 months.
NOTE: Later’s Detailed Hashtag Performance feature is available on Later’s Growth and Advanced plans.
Part #3: Instagram Stories AnalyticsMuch like with Instagram feed posts, you can discover Instagram Stories analytics through the Insights tab, or by swiping up on a live Instagram story.
On the Insights tab, scroll down to “Content You Shared” and tap the arrow alongside your recent stories.
From here, you can sort up to 90 days of stories based on the following metrics:
Back
Call Button Taps
Email Button Taps
Exited
Follows
Next Story
Get Directions Taps
Impressions
Link Clicks
Forward
Profile Visits
Reach
Text Buttons Taps
Website Taps
Reviewing your stories’ performance is a great way to understand what type of Instagram Stories work best for your brand.
For example, you may notice that posts with the highest impressions or reach all contain Instagram Stories stickers — a sign that this strategy resonates with your audience.
For a more detailed performance overview, swipe up on a live story and select the insights icon on the left-hand side of the screen.
Here, you can see:
Interactions (Profile visits)
Impressions
Follows
Navigation (Back, Forwards, Next story, and Exited)
Pay close attention to the Exited metric, as it can be indicative of where your audience lost interest in your content — and something to avoid in future.
TIP: Later’s Instagram Stories Analytics allow you can track and sort up to 12 months of detailed performance data in an easy-to-use dashboard.
Plus, Later automatically calculates your Instagram Stories’ completion rate, which is the percentage of viewers that watched all of your stories without exiting — a metric that isn’t available in the Instagram app.
Analyze your Instagram Stories data with Later’s Instagram Stories Analytics today — available on Later’s Growth and Advanced plans!
Part #4: Instagram Reels AnalyticsInstagram Reels analytics are a fairly new addition to the Insights tab.
To access them, you can open the Instagram Insights menu, or open a specific Reel and tapping the three dot icon.
Metrics include Plays, Reel interactions, Reach, Likes, Comments, and Saves.
Source: Instagram
NOTE: Views of Reels shared to Instagram Stories are included in the overall view count.
Part #5: Video AnalyticsJust like with Instagram feed posts, you can view the performance of up to 2 years’ worth of video through Instagram’s Insights tab.
To access this data, scroll down to “Content You Shared” and tap the arrow alongside the Video tab.
From here, you’ll be able to filter and rank your videos based on several performance metrics:
By assessing which videos kept your viewers hooked and engaged, you’ll get a good idea of what content you should continue to create. The more engaged your audience is, the more likely you are to carry favor with the Instagram algorithm.
To delve into the insights for an individual video, tap the three dots at the bottom of a published video and select “View Insights.
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If you’re tagging products in your posts with Instagram Shopping, it’s a good idea to keep a close eye on which ones are driving the most value for your business.
For an overview of how your shoppable posts are performing, head to the Insights tab, scroll down to “Content You Shared,” and tap the arrow alongside your recent posts or stories.
From here, you should be able to sort your posts and stories by a few product-specific metrics, which will vary depending on whether your account has Instagram Checkout enabled or not.
To see how an individual post is performing, tap “View Insights” to see extra shopping-specific metrics in addition to all the others.
These two data points can be really insightful:
How? If a product post has a high number of page views but very few clicks, it’s likely that your product description, imagery, or price point isn’t compelling enough to convert into click-throughs or sales.
Instagram Live analytics are available through Instagram’s Insights tab.
Source: Instagram
Users can see the number of Accounts Reached, Peak Concurrent Viewers, Comments, and Shares.
Looking to level-up your Instagram Live strategy? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Instagram Live here.
Part #8: Instagram Guides AnalyticsWhen it comes to Instagram Guides, there are almost no Instagram analytics available right now.
As Instagram Guides are a curation of existing posts, products, and locations — views are counted in the metrics for the original content, but not available for Guides specifically.
This is something that will probably change as Instagram Guides continue to evolve, especially given their potential for driving e-commerce on the platform.
Ready to get started with Instagram Guides? Find out everything you need to know here.
As you can see, there are hundreds of Instagram metrics you can track and report on — but trying to tackle them all might not be the best use of your time.
Having a clear view of your brand goals, and the key Instagram metrics that will help achieve them, is often a more efficient approach.
Once you’ve clarified your goals, it’s worthwhile creating a social media report to track your progress in a visually powerful and digestible way.
We’ve created free social media reporting templates available in PDF or Google Slides (Powerpoint).
Just fill out the form below to create your own analytics report and start showcasing your results:
Tracking your Instagram analytics over time will give you a better idea of what type of content helps achieve your goals, so you can build on your success in the future.
You can also download all your key Instagram metrics in a CSV file straight from Later’s Instagram Analytics dashboard!
However you approach Instagram analytics, understanding how your content performs can be a game-changer for your content strategy.
Test out different objectives, play around with your tactics, tweak your content, and see what sticks. The results may surprise you — in a good way.
And if you’re not sure where to start, Later’s Instagram Analytics dashboard has all the basics covered — sign up to Later today to get started!
How to Use Instagram Insights (in 9 Easy Steps)
Instagram Insights shows you engagement analytics that empower you to improve your Instagram for Business strategy.
You no longer have to guess about what works for your audience; Instagram Insights will tell you. You’ll therefore be able to get more likes, earn more followers, and grow your profile exponentially.
In this post, we’ll go over everything you need to know about Instagram Insights and how to leverage it to improve your Instagram profile.
What is Instagram Insights?
Instagram Insights is a feature that allows Instagram Business Account users to see analytics related to their profile and posts.
From this data, you'll be able to identify what your audience likes and engages with the most to improve your Instagram strategy.
Why use Instagram Insights?
Instagram Insights allows you to get access to important user engagement data for your business profile. It’s not just enough to know the raw numbers, such as the amount of likes you get for one post. It’s important to understand your audience, too.
That’s where Insights comes in. It tells you how they do things, what they prefer, and who they are. You can certainly make business decisions based on gut feeling, but you're much more likely to hit the mark when you can validate assumptions with cold, hard facts.
Data and analytics help you measure the impact of your marketing efforts across different channels to see if there's something you need to do differently — like target a different audience, post at a certain time of day, or experiment with a new content format.
Social media isn't any different from other aspects of your marketing in the sense that it can be measured and improved upon.
That's why you'll be able to create a more effective Instagram strategy using Instagram Insights.
To use Instagram Insights, you must first have a business profile. The good news? If you're already using a personal account, you can switch to a business profile right from your phone. Here's how to convert your account in a few simple steps.
How to Get Access to Instagram Insights
- Open up your profile on the Instagram app.
- Access the Settings page.
- Tap 'Account.'
- Click 'Switch to Professional Account.'
- Choose your category and click 'Done.'
- Optional: Switch to a Business account.
- Optional: Connect your Facebook page.
1. Open up your profile on the Instagram app.
You can convert your Instagram profile to a Business account directly from your Instagram mobile app. First up, open up the app and click on your profile picture on the bottom right-hand corner of your feed.
2. Access the Settings page.
Next, it’s time to head to Settings. On your profile, click the hamburger icon on the top-right corner.
On the pop-up, click “Settings.”
3. Tap "Account."
A list menu will come up. Tap “Account.”
4. Click "Switch to Professional Account”.
By switching to a Professional account, you can get access to Insights immediately — even if you’re not a business.
5. Choose your category and click “Done.”
Choose the best category that describes you. Once you’re finished, click “Done.”
After, go back to your profile. Here’s what it will look like:
As you can see, you can immediately access Insights with a Professional account. If you’re a freelancer or content creator, you can stay as is, or you can take the extra step of switching to a Business account.
6. Optional: Switch to a Business account.
If you’re a business, organization, or brand, you’ll want to take the additional step of turning your Professional account into a Business account.
A Professional account gives you full access to Insights, but is designed for independent digital creators. A Business account is more apt for companies.
Note that turning your account into a Professional account always comes before switching to a Business account.
To turn your account into a Business account, click the hamburger menu in the top right corner of your profile. Click “Settings,” then “Account.” At the bottom, click “Switch Account Type.”
Then click “Switch to Business Account.”
Done! You’re now a Business account with access to Insights.
7. Optional: Connect your Facebook page.
Lastly, if you have a Facebook Business page, it’s important to connect it to your Instagram Business or Professional account. To do so, go to your profile and click the “Edit Profile” button.
Under “Profile Information,” click “Connect Facebook page.” Follow the prompts to connect your Page or create a new one.
Be sure to already have a Facebook account prior to connecting your page.
Click here for instructions for setting up your Facebook Page if you don't already have one.
Once you’ve set up your Professional or Business Account, you can begin to use Instagram Insights.
Before we get into specific instructions for using it, however, here are the analytics on this channel that marketers need to know and understand — and how to use them.
Instagram Insights Explained
Let’s look at Instagram Insights from a bird’s eye view and zoom in piece-by-piece.
Insights Overview
Insights Overview is the “home page” of Instagram Insights. Here, you’ll see how you’ve fared overall.
You get several pieces of information on this page:
- Date Range: This represents the days and weeks of data on the screen. You can change the amount of time by clicking “Last 7 days” on the top left-hand corner.
- Information: If you’re ever lost or don’t know what something means, you can click on the “i” button on the top right-hand corner and get definitions for the terms on the screen.
- Accounts Reached: Accounts Reached refers to the number of unique users who have seen your content — posts, stories, reels, videos, Live videos, and promoted ads — at least once.
- Accounts Engaged: Accounts Engaged refers to the amount of users whom 1) you’ve reached and 2) interacted with your content in some way. Interactions can include likes, saves, comments, shares, and replies.
- Total Followers: Total Followers refers to the number of people who follow you.
- Content You Shared: This section gives you the overall number of posts, Stories, reels, videos, Live videos, and promotions that you’ve shared.
Now, let’s go into “Accounts Reached,” “Accounts Engaged,” and “Total Followers” in more detail.
Accounts Reached
In Accounts Reached, you’ll see more specific information about the users who have seen your content and interacted with your profile in some way or form.
Lets’ break down the different pieces of information you’ll find in this page.
- Reached Audience: The reached audience section shows you how many unique users have come across your content. Your reached audience will be broken down by follower status, gender, age, countries, and cities. You can also see the amount of people you’ve reached via ads and promotions.
- Content Reach: The content reach section allows you to see which types of posts have reached the greater amount of people. You’ll first see a graph with the number of people who’ve seen your posts, stories, reels, IGTV videos, and Live videos. Underneath, you’ll see your individual top-performing posts based on reach.
- Impressions: Impressions refers to the number of times all of your posts have been viewed — including repeat views by the same users.
- Profile Activity: Profile activity breaks down the actions users take after visiting your profile.
You can see the number of website taps, business address taps, call button taps, email button taps, and text button taps. For these metrics to show up, however, you have to have set up those buttons.
Accounts Engaged
Accounts engaged refers to the number of users who interacted with your content beyond just watching it or scrolling past it. Let’s break down the sections on this page.
- Engaged Audience: The engaged audience section shows you how many unique users have liked, commented, saved, shared, or replied to your content. Your engaged audience will be broken down by follower status, gender, age, countries, and cities.
- Content Interactions: The content interactions section shows you the total number of times people have liked, commented, saved, shared, or replied to your content. It then breaks down this number on a per-post basis. You’ll also see your top-performing posts per category.
Total Followers
The total followers page of Instagram Insights allows you to see the total number of users who follow you. You can also see follows, unfollows, top locations, age ranges, and genders.
Under total followers and its demographic breakdown, you’ll then see one more section: most active times.
- Most Active Times: The most active times section shows you the hours and days that your followers are most often on Instagram. This allows you to determine the best times to post so you can engage the greatest amount of followers.
How to See Post Insights on Instagram
To see post insights on Instagram, navigate to your Instagram profile and click the button that says “Insights” right above your posts. Alternatively, click the hamburger menu on the top right-hand corner and tap Insights. There, you’ll be able to see Insights for all of your posts, reels, live videos, and more.
Next, let’s go over how you can see insights for individual posts on Instagram.
How to See Insights for an Individual Post
- Navigate to your profile.
- Navigate to the individual post you’d like to see insights for.
- At the bottom of the post, there will be a banner. Tap View Insights.
- You can now see how many likes, comments, shares, and saves your post received.
How to See Insights for a Reel
- Navigate to your profile.
- Navigate to the individual reel you’d like to see insights for.
- At the bottom of the reel, there will be a banner. Tap View Insights.
- You can now see how many plays, likes, comments, shares, and saves your reel received.
How to See Insights for a Story
If your Story is currently live on your profile:
- Navigate to your profile.
- Click on your profile picture.
- Scroll up on the story.
- You’ll immediately access insights for that Story, including replies, exits, link clicks, forwards, and more.
If your Story has already expired or more than 24 hours have passed:
- Navigate to your profile.
- Tap the Insights action button at the top of your post grid.
- Under Content You Shared, tap the row of Stories you’ve shared in the past.
- Swipe up on the individual story you’d like to see insights for.
How to See Insights for a Live Video
If you’ve just finished your Live video:
- Tap View Insights immediately after finishing your video.
- You’ll now be able to see the number of viewers, likes, drop-offs, comments, and other interactions.
If you broadcasted your Live video in the past:
- Navigate to your profile.
- Tap the Insights action button at the top of your post grid.
- Under Content You Shared, tap the row of Live videos you’ve shared in the past.
- Click on the old Live video you’d like to see insights for.
How to See Insights for a Video
- Navigate to your profile.
- Click the Play triangle button (▶) right above your post grid.
- Tap the video you’d like to see insights for.
- Tap the horizontal (⋯) or vertical (⋮) three dots on the corner of the video.
- Tap View Insights in the pop-up menu.
Next, we'll get into how to use Instagram Insights in your day-to-day.
How to Use Instagram Insights
Instagram Insights is a fantastic tool, but it can be hard to know what to do once you gain access. Here are some of the most useful ways you can use Insights as you grow your Instagram profile.
1. Measure reach.
Click the Accounts Reached section. As mentioned, reach reflects the number of unique users that have seen any of your Instagram posts.
Within this category, you'll see insights for:
- Top Posts: The posts that generated the most reach.
- Top Stories: The Instagram Stories posts that generated the most reach.
- Top IGTV Videos: The IGTV videos that generated the most reach.
- Impressions: How many times your posts were seen.
- Profile Activity: Profile visits, website taps, and other activity.
Some of these insights can be expanded for more insights.
2. Track profile visits and followers.
On the Accounts Reached page under Account Activity, you'll be able to see Profile Visits.
Profile Visits reflects the number of times your profile has been viewed.
Find out how many of your profile visitors are turning into followers by dividing your number followers by the number of visitors. Track this number over time to find out whether your “conversion rate” is increasing or decreasing.
3. Determine website clicks.
Website Taps can also be found under Accounts Reached > Profile Activity. This insight reflects the number of times any links you've included in your business profile have been clicked.
5. Track content interactions.
Navigate back to Insights Overview and tap Accounts Engaged. This will bring up a page that shows how your content is performing in terms of engagement, breaking down the metrics by content type.
Likes speaks for itself, reflecting the number of users who liked your post. As with likes, Comments reflects the number of comments left on your post. Saves highlights the number of unique users or accounts who saved your post. If any of these numbers are low, it’s important to reevaluate your Instagram strategy.
6. Track your followers.
Navigate back to Insights Overview and click Total Followers. You'll then reach the Follower Breakdown page.
This page reflects how many followers you've gained or lost over the past week, as well as the average times of day when your followers are using Instagram — data that can be highly beneficial when planning posts.
7. Learn which actions were taken on your post.
To view insights for a specific Instagram post, start by visiting your profile. Tap on the post you'd like to look into, then click View Insights below the image
Under the “Profile Activity” section, you’ll find out the number of actions that users took on your profile as a result of seeing your post — things like visiting your profile, then taking an action like clicking on your website link or following you.
8. Use "Reach" to see where your post showed up in feeds.
Previously named “Discovery,” Reach indicates where your post was seen — or discovered — the most, including how many accounts weren't already following you when they first saw the post.
This section includes metrics on Impressions, which reflect the number of times your post was discovered from a particular place within Instagram, like the user's home feed, a search, your profile, a location tag, or a hashtag.
Reach insights also include data on a post's reach — which reflects the number of unique accounts that saw your post.
9. View Story insights.
Instagram users with a business profile are able to view insights into their ephemeral Stories.
To view your Story insights, navigate back to Insights and scroll down to Content You Shared section on the Insights Overview page.
Scroll down to the Stories section, and you'll be able to see insights for older stories, as well as any that have not yet expired.
Next, we'll get into the more specific insights you can explore.
Impressions
This insight represents how many times your Story was seen.
When viewing these insights, keep in mind that you're able to add multiple images or videos to your Story.
When you do this, every piece of visual content in your Story is counted as a single photo or video in your post.
Let's say you add six photos to your Story. Whether someone only views one or views all six, Instagram only counts your entire Story having received one impression.
The same goes for Story content that has been viewed by a single user more than once. Instagram still only counts that interaction as the entire Story having received one impression.
Reach
This insight reflects the number of unique users that have seen your Story.
Taps Forward
This insight reflects the number of times a user taps your Story photo or video to skip to the next piece of media.
Taps Back
This insight reflects the number of times a user taps your Story photo or video to go back to the previous piece of media.
Replies
This insight reflects the number of times users send messages through the Send Message text box on your Story.
Swipe Aways
This insight reflects the number of times users swipe to skip to the next account’s Story — not to be mistaken for "tap forward," which reflects users skipping ahead to your next piece of Story media.
Exits
This insight reflects the number of times a user leaves the Stories section entirely to return to the home feed.
Measuring Your Effectiveness With Instagram Insights
Now that you know how to access data to inform your strategy with Instagram Insights, you can analyze that data and determine what's working for your audience (and what's not). From there, creating content that gets a ton of engagement will be a lot easier as you consider those benchmarks.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in January 2018 but has been updated for comprehensiveness.
Originally published Jan 12, 2022 7:00:00 AM, updated June 24 2022
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Instagram audience analysis: how to analyze profile statistics
According to the Instagram social network for 2021, its advertising audience is 46% of the Russian population over 13 years old.
The main part of users are solvent young people, so the site is actively used for marketing promotion.
56 million
audience to which advertising can be shown
45.8%
potential audience for advertising older than 13 years
+3.7%
QoQ change in ad reach
60.7%
Instagram tagged as male
39.3%
Instagram tagged as female
90 Instagram is characterized by activity and loyalty to branded accounts. Users write comments, put likes and save posts, provided that the information is useful and relevant for them.
The most important indicators of the account audience
To adjust the content and its presentation to users, they analyze the Instagram audience. The social network itself offers tools for assessing key indicators:
Only owners of business accounts (pages linked to Facebook) have access to this information. For deeper analysis, third-party services are used.
The number of subscribers and the percentage of bots
The number of subscribers is not as important for social network algorithms as for the users themselves.
A large indicator causes trust and interest in the account. But until 2016, Instagram worked differently: the more followers, the faster the account got into the TOP and could earn money on advertising and commercial activities.
This led to the problem of bots. Pages bought artificial users to increase the number of subscribers. Today, it's easy to see if an account was doing this with the help of third-party programs (trendHERO, LiveDune).
Figure 1. Follower growth analysis using the morgen_shtern account as an example
Figure 2. Follower growth analysis using the samoylovaoxana account as an example
In a normal account that develops organically, growth dynamics is gradual. A sharp increase in subscriptions and slow unsubscribes indicate that cheating is being carried out.
Engagement
Engagement is one of the most important indicators of an account. It is necessary to understand the interests of the target audience (TA). This includes likes and comments on the post.
It also depends on engagement how many people see a post in the feed.
A post that gets a lot of positive reactions gets a chance to get into the recommendations, where it will be noticed by users who have not yet subscribed to the account. High engagement allows you to get into the "Relevant" tab, as well as climb to the top by hashtags and location marks.
Engagement Rate (ER) is calculated to evaluate engagement. Formula: (likes+comments)/subscribers*100%. The normal rate is 5-10% and above.
Figure 3. Comparison of the engagement rate of morgen_shtern and samoylovaoxana accounts
Engagement also includes saves and reposts. This is the most accurate indicator of the usefulness of the post for the user. If there are a lot of them, then users found the information in the publication important and interesting in order to share it with friends.
Conversions and Sales
Conversions measure how well your account gets people to buy.
On Instagram, when you launch an ad, you can track how many people clicked on the link or went to the profile.
If the link is in the profile header, then the total number of clicks on it will not be tracked in the application. To do this, Google Analytics is connected to the site and UTM tags are added. You can also shorten the link in the Bit.ly service, which records the number of clicks.
There are several ways to assess how well an audience buys a product through a social network:
Sales through Instagram analytics are difficult to track, since most of them do not occur immediately after a post is published or an ad is launched.
Audience demographics
Demographic characteristics are primarily age and gender. They are important for content optimization, as people aged 25-34 react differently to posts than those aged 35-44. Gender must be taken into account, because the perception of information in men and women is different.
Figure 4.
An example of statistics available in the account
When the main part of the audience is women, the emphasis should be on emotional sales and pleasant visual content. If men, it is important to show the benefits of the product, its main characteristics.
Why you need to evaluate account statistics
Studying your subscribers is a must for every commercial account. This helps to make the right promotion decisions and spend less resources on it. Main goals of page analysis:
Regular analysis of the target audience on Instagram helps to adjust the marketing strategy in time if weaknesses are identified in it. Thus, the promotion brings the maximum result for the minimum financial and time investment.
How to find your target audience
There are several channels through which it is easy to find potential customers, and the first of them is the pages of competitors. This is where the hot audience is concentrated, definitely interested in the products of your niche.
The task of the new page is to create your own USP (unique selling proposition) and find out what advantages it has. To do this, we analyze the audience of the competitor's Instagram account. In the future, targeted advertising is set up for these users.
Figure 5. An example of competitor analysis
The second localization of the audience that suits you is thematic groups. If you work in an area where the main buyer is a mother on maternity leave, then it makes sense to look for them in public pages about raising children. Travelers love pages about tourism and the most beautiful places on the planet.
Figure 6. An example of thematic groups for searching the target audience
It also makes sense to order advertising from a blogger who works in a similar niche. The main advantage of cooperation with him is the possibility of native advertising. Any audience is watching opinion leaders. But before you pay for the services of a blogger, it is important to analyze his statistics.
Figure 7. An example of thematic bloggers to search for the target audience
Hashtags are another way to find an audience. On Instagram, you can even follow them now. These are keywords that help:
Figure 8. An example of thematic hashtags for searching the target audience
One of the main search channels is geolocation. The audience must be determined by this indicator. This is important for:
Geolocation is not important for those who work with clients around the world, such as freelancers.
Figure 9. An example of popular locations for target audience search
Targeted advertising helps to attract the target audience to the account. It allows you to find customers by location, interests, occupation, demographics. The main advantage of targeting is that you can find a very narrow audience.
The search for people interested in your product or service is carried out with the help of special programs, the so-called parsers.
They are able to automatically collect data about accounts (according to predefined parameters) and form lists of suitable users.
Viewing your account statistics
There are two ways to analyze your page:
- via Instagram;
- via Facebook.
In the first case, you need to activate a business account, after which the "Statistics" section will appear. It displays basic information:
Facebook tools provide more detailed information. To use them, you need:
- Log in to your Instagram profile through the mobile app.
- In the account settings, select "Settings".
- Find Switch to Company Profile. This can only be done through Facebook - the corresponding window will open for you.
- Reload the application.
Now, under each published post, a new function "View statistics" is available.
Analysis of other people's pages
It is useful to study not only personal, but also other people's indicators.
This is necessary to compare your data with competitors or to check the blogger's page. For such purposes, third-party resources are used.
LiveDune shows subscribers, traffic for the selected period, number of published posts, likes, comments, reposts, reach, percentage of ER.
Figure 10. LiveDune service
Popsters offers tools for simultaneous analysis of different pages. Shows all the basic account data: engagement, reach, number of followers and their activity.
Figure 11. Popsters service
Instahero is a convenient way to get statistics by gender, age, and location of your competitors' audience. You just need to enter the nickname of another page.
Figure 12. Instahero service
In all these services it is convenient to analyze your own business accounts. They also offer cleaning of bots and selection of bloggers.
Conclusion
Audience analysis on Instagram is an essential stage of marketing promotion in this social network.
It is needed to understand what kind of people are your potential customers, what they react positively to, what they do not like. This is important for creating publications that encourage purchase and engage users.
Modern analytical tools allow you to check not only your own, but also other people's accounts: competitors, bloggers, partners. It is useful to conduct analysis after the launch of advertising campaigns and other marketing activities.
Still have questions about promotion on Instagram?
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How to check an Instagram blogger* before cooperation
Decided to advertise with a blogger on Instagram*? This means that you have already chosen an opinion leader suitable for your business niche. We studied his publications, and they seemed interesting to you. We saw that he had a large audience. Is it possible to agree on cooperation? Take your time, the number of subscribers is easy to wind up, and other indicators can be artificially inflated.
Andrey Kalashnik, CMO of the trendHERO blogger search, analysis and verification service, tells how to check an Instagram* blogger and evaluate the quality of an account.
Manual analysis method
First of all, you need to form an initial opinion about the blogger and understand whether it is worth spending time on a more thorough check.
General profile analysis
Start with a profile assessment. Here are the criteria you should pay attention to:
- Blogging duration. If the user is not a celebrity, then he will need from one to several years to promote his account. At the same time, the number of likes is gradually growing and the quality of the content is improving.
- Number of publications. Some bloggers delete old posts and unpopular photos. However, if only a couple of dozen publications hang in an account with an audience of many thousands, it looks suspicious. At a minimum, posts from the last year should be preserved - this is 300+ publications with regular posting or about 100+ posts with periodic posting.
- Posting frequency. Bloggers who are interested in reach try to post daily or at least every 1-2 days. The rarer the posts, the less likely it is that the blog is of high quality.
- Content quality. If the blogger being checked is not an artist, designer, or art subject, then analyze the informational content rather than the visual. See how interesting and useful the posts are.
- Advertising publications. See if there are advertising posts in the profile. Pay attention to their quantity and quality. If there are few such publications or they are poorly designed, you should not waste time on a blogger.
If the first impression of the profile is favorable, we move on.
The quality and quantity of reactions
Let's move on to the study of reactions, because in the future you will evaluate the effectiveness of your advertising. So, let's look:
- Likes. Pay attention to who puts likes - if most of the likes are left by citizens of Asian and Eastern countries, accounts with digital nicknames or clearly unreal users, this is cheating.
If most like accounts have more than 2000 followers, they are probably bots or mass followers. - Comments. Here we evaluate not so much the quantity as the quality. We look at how meaningful the comments are and how they correlate with the topic of the post. At the same time, we evaluate how the blogger communicates – whether he is talking with the audience, answering questions, or simply leaving emoticons. The abundance of the same type of comments without specifics (“Class”, “Super”, etc.) should alert you. This could be a sign of cheating.
Now let's look at the audience.
Subscribers and subscriptions
Analyze the composition of the audience. If you see the predominance of commercial accounts, foreigners or half-empty profiles with incomprehensible nicknames and avatars, you can immediately close the blogger’s profile and forget about it. Probably subscribers bought.
Randomly select several accounts among subscribers and, if possible, determine their geography.
Too many foreign accounts in the Russian-language blog raises doubts about the legal way to attract an audience.
Also look at the number of blogger subscriptions. Several thousand subscriptions suggests mass following. It is unlikely that a person who is actively engaged in blogging will subscribe to thousands of accounts.
If, as a result of manual analysis, there are no obvious claims against the account, you can talk to the blogger about the terms of cooperation. And at the same time evaluate the statistics of the account.
Blogger statistic score
Feel free to ask for stats from bloggers whose accounts match your needs. You will see blog traffic, audience coverage, age, gender and geography of subscribers, subscription dynamics. What are we looking at first?
Audience behavior
In the publication statistics, analyze:
- Subscriptions. This is the number of users who subscribed after viewing the post.
- Coverage. The number of unique accounts that viewed the post. Regardless of the number of views for one user, one reach is taken into account.
- Impressions. Total number of post views. All views are shown here, including repeated ones.
In this section, you are interested in audience coverage. Subscription sections and the ratio of impressions to coverage will allow you to indirectly assess the quality of content and understand how interesting the blogger's publications are to the audience.
Pay attention to the dynamics of indicators in the "Audience" section. If you see periodic strong ups and downs in the growth of subscribers, the blogger probably holds contests to attract users and a large third-party audience comes in, which “falls off” at the end of the event.
If your product has restrictions - only for women, only for a certain city, etc. - see the relevant parameters: audience composition by gender, age, geolocation.
Impression Source
Be sure to check the Impression Source. Knowing how people saw your post will help you understand how they were attracted.
- "Main". Subscribers saw the post while scrolling the feed.
- Profile. There are two options here: the subscriber went to the profile and opened a random post, or the blogger bought advertising so that new users open his posts directly from the profile.
- "Interesting". The number of impressions of the post in the section with interesting publications.
- "Other". Impressions in third-party social networks and messengers or through repost.
It's better if impressions from "Main" or "Interesting" dominate. This is an indirect indicator of the blogger's natural popularity.
Content characteristics
See what types of content the blogger uses most: photos, videos, carousel posts, or product posts.
You can request statistics for the specific content type that interests you the most.
In the post statistics, pay attention to the following indicators:
- Engagement. Engagement rate, or engagement rate, shows the ratio of reactions to the number of publications and to the number of subscribers. For nanobloggers (1-10K subscribers), the normal engagement rate is 5-10%. For millionaire bloggers, the average ER rarely exceeds 2-5%.
- Comments. As with manual analysis, we evaluate the naturalness of the comments, the manner of communication of the blogger.
- Likes. Usually about 5-10% of subscribers react to a post. A lot of likes under an individual post can be if it was promoted intentionally. It is suspicious if there are too many likes under each post.
- Impressions is the total number of views.
- Reach - unique views. It is optimal if the coverage is at least 20-40% of the number of subscribers.
It is desirable that the coverage of the unsigned audience does not exceed 20-30%. If you see stable coverage of the "foreign" audience above 50-60% - say goodbye to the blogger. - Reposts - how often users share posts.
- Followers — how many new followers the post attracted.
- Saved - how many users bookmarked the post.
- Profile visits - how many users went to the profile after viewing the post.
Look at the spread of reactions under posts. The number of likes and comments under the posts should not differ much. If the number of reactions is approximately the same under each publication, cheating is possible. When several posts get a huge number of reactions against the background of average rates for other publications, the audience was probably attracted through a contest.
In Stories statistics look:
- Impressions, reach, subscriptions.
The average reach in Stories should be at least 10-20% of the number of subscribers. - Scroll backward or forward - the number of touches to view the previous or next story.
- Exits is the number of taps to exit Stories.
Be sure to request statistics, both for the latest publications and for the period. This will allow us to assess the dynamics of improvement/deterioration of indicators.
Ask for easy-to-study screenshots and a video recording of the statistics screen. This will save you from adjusting the numbers through Photoshop.
Analyzing bloggers manually and based on the provided statistics takes a lot of time and effort. Such methods are acceptable if you occasionally need 1-2 bloggers. But what if you constantly work with bloggers on Instagram* and launch campaigns involving 10-15 influencers? Special services will help.
Instagram blogger verification tools*
Blogger verification services differ in functionality and purpose.
But they are united by the fact that they significantly save the user's time. Verification of one blogger will take only a few minutes instead of several hours of a thorough profile analysis. In addition, you will receive the most reliable data: services collect maximum statistics in order to prepare accurate reports. We offer you to get acquainted with three services that will help you check the Instagram blogger in detail*.
trendHERO
trendHERO is a service for searching and checking bloggers on Instagram*. Here you can not only check the account of a particular blogger, but also find an account by the specified parameters.
Search for bloggers in trendHERO
The service shows the account quality score — Audience Quality Score (AQS) . This allows you to immediately exclude low-quality profiles from the scan.
A fragment of the trendHERO report
But the number of individual metrics in the report is much larger, and they are presented in more detail.
Can be viewed:
- Total number of subscribers and volume of quality audience.
- Audience engagement, accessibility and authenticity.
- Average rates of reactions to publications.
- Demographic and geographic characteristics of subscribers.
- Audience distribution by types.
- Audience interests.
- Similar accounts.
- Dynamics of growth of subscribers and subscriptions.
- Distribution of posts and percentage of likes from subscribers.
- Quality of comments.
- Publications and advertising posts of the account.
- Other.
Total trendHERO uses 90+ metrics to make a detailed report.
Example of a trendHERO report
The service interface is available in English and Russian. There is a two-week trial period and the possibility of free verification of one account with an audience of up to 10K subscribers. The service base includes 80+ million Instagram accounts*.
HypeAuditor
The HypeAuditor analytics platform uses artificial intelligence to analyze collected metrics and generate a profile score. In total, the service uses 35+ metrics to check the quality of accounts.
HypeAuditor report fragment
You can also study the metrics separately, namely:
- Types of subscribers (real users, influencers, mass followers, etc.).
- Audience interests.
- Demographic and social characteristics.
- Level of engagement.
- The ratio of comments and likes.
- Dynamics of subscriptions and audience growth.
- Brand references.
- Similar accounts.
Sample HypeAuditor report
Interface language is English. There is a free access option with limited functionality, a basic plan, and pro add-ons. The HypeAuditor database consists of 23 million bloggers, but keep in mind that the geography of accounts is quite wide and, in addition to Instagram*, the service works with YouTube and TikTok.
InBlogs
The InBlogs online service allows you to search for Instagram* bloggers in a database of 39+ thousand blogs and view general account statistics.
InBlogs report fragment
The following data can be viewed in the report:
- Account type.
- Basic data on publications.
- Number of responses on average.
- Geo active subscribers (country, region, city).
- Advertising examples.
- Check history (statistics for different periods).
The amount of data in the report is much less than in the two above-mentioned services. But there is an interesting trick here - the service shows the recommended cost of advertising for a blogger.
Blogger's advertising cost recommendation from InBlogs
Of course, using the service for a detailed check is inappropriate. However, with the help of InBlogs, you can navigate the issues of payment and get a rough idea of the cost of cooperation.
