Instagram Metrics: How to develop an effective Instagram strategy

Is your Instagram marketing strategy driving sales? If not, then it is time to understand what metrics you should focus on. Instagram was initially a billboard for brands to display their advertisements, and now the app has evolved to be an extension of the storefront. So if you are not trying to develop an Instagram strategy, you are losing a lot of opportunities in the e-commerce space.

Instagram is a dynamic and very competitive platform whose trends change constantly. People's online behaviour has changed ever since the pandemic started. As physical stores were closing down, brands had to shift their focus on e-commerce. This is when Instagram decided to develop its role in the online shopping experience. Instagram started experimenting with its in-app shopping features. These features would allow brands to put tags on posts that would redirect users to their brand page. You might have noticed a lot of reels with a ‘link sticker’ that redirects viewers to brand pages where you can shop.

Understanding Instagram metrics is crucial if you want to improve your brand's visibility. These metrics would help you to measure your performance. Developing new marketing strategies would also become a lot easier.

Instagram stories engagement

Instagram stories, which can be short videos or pics, vary from typical content. They are only visible for 24 hours. This disappearance makes tracking engagement for the feature a little more challenging.

Instagram's analytics tool, Insights, is one method to keep track of this indicator. Remember that you'll need an Instagram business profile to use Insights. With 'Stories', there are two key indicators to keep an eye on views and exits. Your views state how many different people saw your story. To clarify, the higher your number of followers, the more people have viewed your stories.

Your exits show you which slide your audience was on when they left your content. Exits can help you determine what piques your audience's attention and what doesn't. Try to find out why so many users lost interest at that time if you observe a lot of exits on one slide. Some brands and Influencers are very good at engaging their audiences through stories. They narrate a compelling story and make viewers feel like they are a part of the brand’s journey.

Engagement per follower

This metric measures your engagement per post. Many waste time comparing their likes with brands with a higher following than them. Considering their numbers, you should focus on whether you are getting a good response from your followers.

How can you measure your engagement? You calculate engagement by totalling the likes, comments, saves, and story replies. You can apply this number to the formula below to calculate the engagement rate.

Total engagement /Total No. of followers* 100 = Engagement rate

Finding the engagement rate would help you understand how your posts perform. You can find new ways to improve your posts. This formula can also calculate the engagement rate per post. You can compare it with your other posts to understand which strategy works the best for you. One excellent tip to get followers engaged in your posts is to get them hooked. If you have posted a video, try to get the audience interested in the very first second.

Impressions

Impressions refer to the number of people who saw your post regardless of likes and comments. This metric is important because it shows your visibility on Instagram. You can figure out how to promote your posts through this metric. Growth on Instagram is impossible without increasing

your follower count over time. Your impression also determines how well you are performing in your niche.

One of the best ways to improve your impressions is using the right hashtags. Experiment with various hashtags and observe what hashtags work best for you. If you want to find your impressions on Instagram, click the 'Activity' Tab. You can see how many people interacted with your content in the last seven days.

Followers growth rate

Followers count depends on how well you execute other metrics. It doesn't matter how large your follower count is at the moment. Increasing that number should always be your long-term strategy. As a brand, growing followers count means increased visibility, reliability and guaranteed sales. As an influencer, growing followers means a higher engagement rate and impressions.

You must check your followers' growth or shrinking rate and assess what caused them. You can now develop the best content strategy for you and find out the current trends in your niche. Calculating your follower growth rate is easy. Take the number of new followers you acquired throughout the month. Divide that number by the total number of followers you had before.

For example, you had 500 followers at the beginning of June, and you gained 50 followers by the end of the month. This result indicates that you have a 10% followers growth rate, with is pretty decent. Suppose you have a follower count of 1k. If you have only gained ten followers at the end of the month, your growth rate is 1%, which is not very encouraging.

Comment section

'Likes' are essential. It tells you whether your audience likes your content strategy. But it does not tell you how good your engagement is, which is a metric far more important than 'Likes.' While many consider 'likes' as a metric used for showing off, the comments tell a better story of how well your post has performed.

The comments you receive can be positive or negative. But it proves that your content impacts the audience and compels them to leave a comment. This engagement will help build a community and a more loyal follower base. People fake 'likes' all the time. Many users double-tap every post they come across while casually scrolling. It is not a very reliable metric for measuring growth.

It's also good to track which posts receive the most comments over time to see if a trend emerges. Create more posts that your audience enjoys to maintain a high engagement.

Trending hashtags

Instagram's unpredictable algorithm can often wreck your content strategy. But hashtags have proven to be a reliable strategy to maintain momentum. You can maintain reach and engagement by selecting relevant hashtags. Instagram users can use up to 30 hashtags in each post. Ensure to use that quota effectively by researching and learning from past results. Regarding hashtags, it might be surprising to know how often less is more.

It's no surprise that hashtags are the most popular feature on Instagram. Posts that include at least one hashtag receive 12.6 per cent higher interaction than those that do not. They function in the same way as keywords do in search engine optimization. To promote user-generated content, using your hashtag is a terrific idea. You don't need any special software to keep track of your progress. Instead, search for your hashtag and watch how many results come up. You may also repost them on your account to increase engagement on your page. This step will raise visibility for your hashtag.