Introduction: How and Why to Use Instagram Analytics

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About: Hi, I'm Emanuel. Currently, I am an Undergraduate student at the University of Manitoba. I joined the Computer Science department because it's an astounding topic. Most of all, I want to learn all that I possi…

Instagram can be a powerful tool for online marketing. This social media platform allows users to reach different audiences than other social media services. According to Instagram, most users are between the ages of 18 and 30. Posting pictures on Instagram allows your business to reach these younger demographics.
Analytics refers to the statistical data of how users view and respond to advertisements. Having access to the analytics of your Instagram account can be especially helpful for a growing business. Analytics programs usually provide information about user engagement with each photo, as well as information about daily follower changes. Some analytics services offer additional demographic and geographic information alongside the other information. Additionally, all this information can be compiled into graphs and percentages for easy viewing. Using the information gained from analytics, businesses can create increasingly targeted ads.

Instagram itself does not have any built in analytics manager. Instead, businesses can use Facebook’s Insights functionality or other third party tracking apps to access this information. In this Instructable you will learn how to access your business’ Insights page and what you can do with the information it provides. Also, you will learn about some alternative options for accessing the same information.

Step 1: Instagram Analytics

First off, Instagram does not have its own analytics tools. However, since Facebook owns Instagram, Facebook offers analytics for Instagram. With some minor modifications to your Instagram account, you can use all the same analytics tool. Analytics will help with simple monitoring like seeing how trendy you are on Instagram. Also, you can compare business performance to business benchmarks provided. Finally, things like monitoring ad cost and income are easily possible.

Getting started with Analytics
There are a few requirements before you can use analytics on Instagram. If you don’t already have one, you’ll need a Facebook page for your business. Think of it as extra promotion of your business. To access analytics on Instagram, you will need to change your account to a business account. If you need further guidance finding analytics, please refer to the instructional video. Accessing analytics from a business account: Go to your profile. Tap on the little bar graph icon in the top right corner. View general and specific information about your Instagram activity. For any of your analytics needs on Instagram, Facebook provides the necessary features.

Comparing to Competitors
As mentioned before, you can monitor your Instagram activity on individual posts and stories. Furthermore, you can monitor specific details that matter to your business and compare those figures against other companies using analytics. This cluster of organized information lets you easily document progress throughout the profile history. Lastly, analytics allow you to compare your business to benchmarks provided. To summarize, It makes things like monitoring performance and history an easy task. Monitoring activity is a guaranteed way to ensure a successful online business.

Ad Analytics and Targeting
Ads can make or break a business, especially for web-based businesses. The first thing that any business will consider is the price of the ad space. Incidentally, with analytics you can monitor ad cost as they incur. Also, businesses can monitor how much activity the ad is generating. For example, how many clicks and the accumulative cost of the ad space. With constantly updating analytics, it’s easy to notice when an ad falls flat. In such cases, you will have a basis to know if the ad didn’t work or needs some revision. In summary, better-targeted ads will undoubtedly bring in more customers and help promote your business.

You are now ready to make your very own business account on Instagram. In essence, your knowledge of how to compare to competitors, place better-targeted ads and saving you money. The provided analytics, give you a foothold for growing your business.

Step 2: Other Free Third-Party Instagram Analytics Tools

There are third-party analytics tools that you can use, aside from Facebook’s analytical tool. I recommend any of these:

- SimplyMeasured ·
- Squarelovin ·
- Socialbakers

These tools are free to use and integrate nicely with Instagram. Some information about these tools is described below.

SimplyMeasured
SimplyMeasured offers a free Instagram report for users that have less than 25000 followers. This tool provides a report that shows detailed and clear statistics on the activities of the Instagram account. The data from the reports are available in charts or numbers and can be downloaded into Excel for further analysis. Furthermore, the report provided lets you quickly see what has worked well in your Instagram marketing; it shows a wide range of engagement metrics, such as the best day and time to post, most popular location, the most engaging tags, the highest engagement on sites outside Instagram, your most active commenters, and the most common keywords in the comments. Additionally, this tool displays the top posts sorted by engagement. Finally, you can apply the insights gotten from the report to your future posts, for better results.

Squarelovin
Squarelovin gives you a free basic Instagram analytics. The report provided by this tool is well designed and easy to understand. It displays metrics on recent posts and growth, a monthly analysis, and a history of your posts ordered by year, month, day, and hour. Also, this is one of the few analytical tools that allow you to manage your Instagram account from its platform; you can create albums, and like and comment on other posts.

Socialbakers
You can use Socialbakers to get a free report on your most popular Instagram photos, filters, hashtags, and all your interactions with your followers. The report provided is detailed and aesthetically pleasing.

There are still a lot of good third-party Instagram analytical tools out there, but any of these, SimplyMeasured, Squarelovin, or Socialbakers, can suit your needs.As your business grows and expands, your social media use and presence will increase across different social media platforms. Hence, you will have to find an analytical tool for each platform you use or a multiplatform analytical tool; Quintly is a good option.

Step 3: Learn More!

Analytics is a powerful tool that lets you monitor your social media presence. Now that know how to set up the accounts, you have basic knowledge to get started. Availability of analytic tools including, Facebook, SimplyMeasured, Squarelovin, and SocialBakers. Any business related data can be compared and stored with ease. You have all the information necessary to start a successful social media campaign.
There are other Instructables that have similar ideas as ours and we would like to share them with you. There is always more to learn!

- Here is a link to an Instructable on how to create Instagram ads. https://www.instructables.com/id/Creating-Instagr...

- Here is a link to an Instructable about Facebook analytics. https://www.instructables.com/id/Facebook-Analyti...

- Here is a link to an Instructable about Twitter analytics. https://www.instructables.com/id/Twitter-Analytic...