If you have an Instagram business account, you have a powerful analytics tool at your disposal: Instagram Insights.

This handy section of your profile collects statistics on your performance that can help you assess how well your account is doing and how you might be able to hone your strategy to perform even better.

In this post, we’ll walk you through each section of your Instagram Insights and explain how you can leverage the information within it to boost your business on Instagram.

How to Access Insights

To view your Insights, tap the profile icon on the lower right corner of your screen. Then, tap the hamburger menu icon that appears on the upper right corner, and select “Insights” from the menu.

Don’t see it? Make sure your Instagram account is a business account. (If it isn’t, tap “Settings” on the very bottom of the menu that opens when you tap the hamburger icon, then tap “Account,” scroll to the bottom, tap “Switch to a professional account,” and tap “Business.”)

Your Insights are divided into 3 sections: Content, Activity, and Audience.

Content

This section displays information about the content you’ve shared over the past week.

The Overview displays the total number of posts, stories, and promotions you have shared from your account this week.

Below the Overview, you’ll see a breakdown of those categories with thumbnails of the content you’ve shared. On the lower section of each thumbnail, you’ll see an icon displaying the number of times that post, story, or promotion has been viewed — also known as “reach.”

You can tap “See all” to the right of each heading to see all the content from that category that you’ve posted in a given time period, organized by reach. This is a great way to instantly find out which of your posts is performing best! If you like, you can select a different time period (from 7 days to 2 years) or ranking criteria (type of interaction by which to rank the posts). You can also tap each post to get an in-depth view of that post’s performance.

This section helps you by giving you a bird’s eye view of all the content you’ve put out this week and how well it’s engaging your audience.

Activity

This section displays the activity on your account during the past week.

Discovery

The Discovery subsection shows you how many people have seen your content over the past week and where they found it. The number above the graph indicates your reach — the number of unique accounts that have seen any of your posts or stories. The graph breaks that number down by days of the week. Tap the graph to display the exact numbers.

Below the graph, you’ll find the total reach, and right below, you’ll see how it compares to your reach from the previous week.

You’ll also find the number of impressions. This is the total number of times your posts and stories have been seen.

This number will generally be higher than your reach, since it’s likely that accounts that follow you will see more than one of your posts — and that’s a good thing. You want your followers to be engaged enough to view multiple posts. If you see that there’s not much of a gap between these numbers, that could mean that either you’re not posting very frequently, or your followers aren’t seeing multiple posts. In the case of the latter, engaging your followers more by commenting on their posts and interacting with them might help.

This subsection might also display a breakdown of your impressions by source. This can give you an idea of how people are finding your posts, which can help you evaluate which of your strategies is working.

Interactions

Interactions measures the number of actions people take when they engage with your profile. This includes visits or clicking on your website, email, or phone number. The total number of interactions will be displayed above the graph. Tap the graph to see how many interactions you’ve had each day of the past week.

Below the graph, you’ll see how many profile visits and website clicks you’ve had over the past week, as well as how many times people have tapped Email or Call from your profile.

This subsection can show you how your account is performing in terms of active engagement. Interactions are key to growing and maintaining your audience.

Audience

The audience section shows you who is seeing and interacting with your account. By analyzing this data, you can learn more about the audience your posts are reaching and how well that audience aligns with your overall marketing strategy.

The Growth subsection shows you how many people have followed and unfollowed your account in the past week. The interactive graph allows you to tap on a day of the week to view the exact numbers for that day.

The Top Locations subsection shows you where your audience is concentrated — by city or by country. If your business serves the local community, you’ll want most of your followers to be located in your immediate area. If you see that many of your followers are from other places, think about how to hone your content to appeal more to people from your exact location. See our post on How to Reach Customers on Instagram When You’re a Local Business for some tips.

The Age Range subsection shows you how old your Instagram audience is. You can break this down by men and women, too. If your business is aimed at young professionals and you see that most of your audience is aged 18-24 and 25-34, you’re right on target. If your audience skews younger or older, you may want to evaluate why your content is appealing more to that audience and what you can do to appeal more to people from the age range you’re aiming for.

The Gender subsection shows you a pie chart gender breakdown of your audience. As with the above sections, make sure the data you’re seeing here aligns with your target audience profile.

The Followers subsection tells you when your followers tend to be on Instagram — by hours for each day of the week, or by day of the week. This can guide your post timing strategy: be sure to post at peak times to give your content the best chance to be seen.

Pulling it all together

The information you can gather from the above sections can help you gain invaluable insights about:

• How many accounts you’re reaching
• What kind of content best engages your audience
• Who is seeing your posts and whether they match your customer profile
• The ideal times to post

Just to name a few. Armed with this knowledge, you can make informed adjustments to your content strategy that will produce real, measurable results.

Action Items:

1. Review your Insights once a week.
2. Consider inputting the data into a spreadsheet so you can access it later and analyze trends over longer periods of time.
3. Note which posts are performing best and evaluate what might be working about them.
4. Compare your Audience numbers with your ideal customer profile and see how well it lines up. If there’s room for improvement, think about what you can do to reach people who fit your profile better.