4 Instagram Metrics Your Brand Should Be Tracking
When it comes to measuring success on Instagram, there are a few common metrics that brands often track based on their goals—impressions, reach, follower growth, engagement, etc. These things are important, of course, but there are also a few less common metrics your brand may be overlooking.
The following four Instagram metrics will help you obtain a better understanding of the full impact your brand has when it comes to Instagram-based marketing.
1. Story Reach Rate
It’s no surprise that the Instagram Story feature has become an essential piece of every brand’s digital marketing strategy. According to an infographic released by Hootsuite, about 500 million people use the tool each and every day.
One of the most common goals brands have for their Instagram Story posts is to engage the brand’s existing audience in a more informal way. Thanks to Instagram Insights, it’s easy to see how many people view your brand’s Instagram Stories. But, that number doesn’t tell the full story. That’s why it’s important to also measure your the reach rate for each of your brand’s Instagram Story posts.
Reach rate is calculated by dividing an Instagram Story posts’ total reach by your brand’s follower count and then multiplying by 100 to determine the percentage. Here’s the formula:
total reach / follower count * 100 = reach rate
This metric indicates what percentage of your brand’s existing followers are seeing your Instagram Story posts. By monitoring the reach rate of Story posts over time, your brand will be able to determine if the posts are resonating with your existing audience, which can inform improved content decisions moving forward.
2. Post Saves
We all know that Instagram engagement metrics like comments and likes are important when it comes to measuring content performance. But, one of the most important engagement metrics to arise recently is a bit less visible than the others—post saves.
The Instagram Saves feature provides a way for users to save a post that they like for future reference—even if they don’t directly like or comment on that post. Once saved, users have the ability to organize their saved posts into folders (read: wish lists, travel destinations, funny quotes, etc.).
The Instagram algorithm uses the saves metric as a measure of post quality. Posts with great engagement (including saves) will be shown to more people in the Instagram feed.
By measuring the saves on your brand’s Instagram posts, you’ll have insight into the content that resonates with your audience so you can produce similar content in the future.
3. Story Interactions
Many brands set engagement-related goals for social media. If your brand falls into this category, then Instagram Story post interactions is a set of metrics you should be focused on.
Similar to how it sounds, interaction metrics are those that are directly related to the number of interactions a brand has obtained via their Instagram Story posts (they are a form of engagement metrics). Metrics in this category include the following:
- Profile visits
- Followers
- Website visits
- Shares
- Replies
- Contact (calls, texts, emails, etc.)
- Sticker taps
- Product page views
- Product page views per product tag
Based on your brand’s specific goals, some of these interaction metrics may be more relevant than others. For example, if your brand has a goal to increase followers, it would be important to determine exactly how many followers your Instagram Story posts have captured (bonus points if you measure the percent of followers as it relates to profile visits driven from Instagram Stories!).
Don’t forget to grab Instagram Story metrics within two weeks of posting! You’ll only have access to these types of metrics via Instagram Insights for a short time.
4. Referral Traffic
In addition to collecting Instagram metrics directly within the social platform, it’s also important to evaluate information related to Instagram efforts on your brand’s website. This is especially important if your Instagram campaign goals focus on driving traffic to your brand’s website to capture emails, drive sales, and more.
Tracking referral traffic sent by Instagram to a website can be tricky, however, because the only place for clickable post links for the platform is within your brand’s Instagram bio. So, to accurately track referral traffic, it’s important to make use of Google Analytics (a free website tracking tool).
Referral traffic insights related to your brand’s efforts on Instagram can be found under the acquisition data category. By exploring the provided list of referral sources from social media, you’ll be able to form an understanding of how many website sessions occurred as a direct result of your brand’s efforts on Instagram.
If you’re a real Google Analytics whiz, you can take things even further by attaching tracking codes (UTM parameters) to links used in your Instagram efforts to further pinpoint which campaigns drove the most referral traffic and conversions to your brand’s website.
A few takeaways
It’s important to use metrics and insights to determine the results of your brand’s efforts on Instagram. It isn’t enough, however, to simply rely on basic metrics like engagements and reach.
The four metrics outlined above will help your brand to understand more about how your Instagram campaigns are performing—from which posts users are saving for later to how many people your content is driving to the website. All of the insights collected will help you to continuously adapt and improve your Instagram marketing efforts in the future.
How can YMC help?
If you’re interested in learning more about digital marketing, we’re here to help. At YMC, we’ve been connecting brands with 15- to 29-year-old consumers for two decades—we’d be happy to share our wealth of knowledge with you. Contact us today!