Instagram is a powerful marketing tool. It allows businesses to showcase its products and services with high-resolution photos. However, posting nicely-edited pictures and placing a few relevant hashtags won’t do enough for a campaign. Marketers must rely on data to improve their ongoing and future Instagram campaigns.
A great thing about today’s technology: performance monitoring tools are freely available including ones made for this social network. If you have a birds-eye-view of your Instagram posts’ performances, then you can derive your best practices. You can use these to strengthen your weak posts and maintain or improve your best-performing content.
Here are five crucial points that can help you improve your Instagram content consistently.
Five Instagram Campaign Areas to Give Attention
The Right Analytics Tool
If you want to cut a hard-skinned fruit, then you need the proper knife. The social network’s built-in Instagram Insights is helpful but only provides basic information regarding content performance. It shows you your possible audience profile and the time of day your posts reached the most attention. Instagram Insights also shows you your top-performing posts based on likes or comments.
Another free tool is SocialBakers. It not only shows the most popular content you have but also your most-used filters and hashtags. It’s a must for marketers who love beautiful and well-presented reports. SocialBakers’ user interface is quite simple to use. You just need to scroll through and zoom into reports to find the information you need.
Simply Measured’s Instagram report is the most-used for businesses active in the social network. It’s also free to use. Your analytic information is split into three categories: charts, scorecard, and appendix. Simply Measured’s report shows you the engagement of followers by percentage. It also shows you the likes and comments you received per photo or video. A chart on the side shows you the trend of your engagement for a given timeframe.
You can use one or you can use all of them because they’re free and has sufficient features.
Marketing Funnel Losses Per Section
Instagram is a social network that can house an entire marketing funnel. It can spread awareness and have your audience consider buying your product. If you use an ad, then your audience can click a link to your buying page, completing the funnel.
It’s easy to measure your gains per funnel on any social network. However, you must also pay attention to the loss of audience you receive on every stage. It is crucial you know which stage you must focus on, and data can help.
You can use a simple spreadsheet to account for all data per stage. You can list any person who likes or comments on the first stage. Account for all people who began following after you posted content. Lastly, you must list down the people who made contact with and a purchase from you.
At this point, you can see the number of people you lose per tier. You just need to divide the higher level with the consecutive level to get the conversion rate. For example, divide Awareness with the number of followers you received at a given timeframe. Then, divide the number of followers with the figure of those who contacted you. You need conversion rates to improve your funnel’s overall profitability even on Instagram.
Growth Rate
Your number of followers on the homepage increases with every post. However, the figure does not guarantee each of them is a viable lead. To determine your growth rate, a particularly important metric, you can do the following.
First, list down the follower total you received each month. Then, list down the number of new followers you receive in the same timeframe. Next, you can deduct the past number of followers against the present figure. Lastly, divide the figure by the digit of past number of followers at the given timeframe and multiply it by 100% to get your growth rate.
The growth rate allows you to set key performance indicators (KPIs) or benchmarks. These data help you predict the growth of followers you can have the following month or regular timeframe.
Sentiment Trend
Numbers can only suggest a story. KPIs can help you identify areas you need to consider, improve, and surpass. However, they can only suggest stories. Luckily, the behavior of your followers can say more.
Instagram only has two reactive options per post: like or comment. These do not guarantee insightful responses. Asking questions is an excellent way to measure audience sentiment. Note down the number of people who made a quality response. Examples of these include asking for product or service prices or giving a substantiated answer to a question.
Another way to measure audience sentiment is to post content regarding trade-relevant events. A cosplayer can do this by posting a photo of him or herself in the event. Quality followers will respond with a personalized “hello” or “I’m also going.”
CTR Measurements
As with any social network, click-through rates are important. These are measured by dividing the number of fresh clicks by the figure of viewers. Your analytic tool can provide the necessary equation components for you. Also, make sure you’re using a Google UTM to measure data accurately.
The only way to add a link to any post is to redirect people to your bio or account page. Account for the number of viewers and the number of clicks in a spreadsheet. You can do this per post, number of post, or a given timeframe.
