There is no shortage of Social Media platforms in today’s world. Almost everyone in this world with access to the Internet is a user of at least one of the Social Media platforms. The fact that these platforms are free to use has encouraged more people to use them. One of the most well-known Social Media platforms is Instagram. Instagram Business Analytics is one of the most demanding and essential skills to grow business on Instagram. In Q4 of 2020, Instagram had 1.074 billion active users that helped them generate an estimated revenue of 6.8 billion USD in just one quarter. Instagram’s total estimated revenue for 2020 was 22 billion USD.
But if Instagram is free for use for everyone, then how does it generate revenue? The answer to that is advertisements. Instagram followed a simple model in which they first generate a large user base and then provide businesses the ability to advertise their product to this large audience and get charged for it accordingly.
Businesses consider Social Media Marketing to be one of the most preferred forms of Digital Marketing due to the fact that these platforms have a large user base and can hence help businesses reach a wider audience.
This article will help you understand how Instagram can help businesses reach a wider audience and how they can perform an in-depth analysis of their Marketing efforts using Instagram Business Analytics.
Table of Contents
Introduction to Instagram
Image Source: https://cyware.com/news/instagram-testing-new-username-auto-lock-feature-626a964e
Instagram is one of the most well-known free Social Media platforms that allows users to share photos and short videos. It is considered to be a popular way to connect with brands, celebrities, leads, family, friends, etc.
Instagram allows users to edit photos and videos right from their mobile or web application and upload them to their profile. Users have been given the ability to write captions with the posts along with any required hashtags or location-based geotags. Users can choose to make their profile public or private as per their requirements. A private profile means that only the followers of a user can view the posts whereas a public profile means that anyone with an active Instagram account can view the posts. Any post by a user will automatically be indexed on the feed of their followers along with its captions, hashtags, and geolocation.
More information on Instagram can be found here.
Understanding the Key Features of Instagram
Some of the most popular features of Instagram are as follows:
1) Direct Messaging
Allows users to chat with each other privately free of charge. Direct Messaging can be used to send a message to another Instagram user in text form or in the form of a picture or a video.
2) Video and Voice Calls
Allows users to video or voice call each other anytime free of cost.
3) Stories
Allows users to post casual moments from their daily lives that are deleted automatically after 24 hours.
4) Live Videos
Allows users to stream live videos to all their followers through their Stories. These Live Videos can also be joined by other people using Instagram after approval from the user that started the Live Video.
5) IGTV
Instagram TV (IGTV) was first introduced as a separate application but was then integrated with the main Instagram application. IGTV allows users to share videos of duration up to an hour.
6) Instagram Business
Allows businesses to create their own professional business profile for Marketing purposes.
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Introduction to Instagram Business Account
Image Source: https://blogs.constantcontact.com/instagram-business-account/
Instagram rolled out a feature that allowed users to create Business Accounts in 2016. A Business Account is similar to a company or an organization page on Facebook. It allows businesses to market their products to billions of users on the platforms. It can also help users easily discover and buy products they like through the Instagram application itself.
A survey of Instagram users revealed that almost 90% of its users follow a Business Account, 2 out of every 3 users believe that Instagram helped them interact with brands, and 50% of users felt that they were more interested in a brand after they saw its advertisements on Instagram. These statistics should give you an idea of how much Instagram and its functionality of providing Business Accounts have grown since its inception.
More information on Instagram Business Accounts can be found here.
Key Features of Instagram Business Account
Some of the key features of Instagram Business Accounts are as follows:
1) Instagram Business Analytics and Insights
Instagram Business Analytics and Insights is considered to be one of the most popular features that is leveraged by almost all businesses using Instagram for Marketing purposes. This is something that is only available for Business Accounts and not for Personal Accounts and hence, considered to be a huge perk of switching the account type.
Instagram Business Analytics and Insights can provide businesses a breakdown of profile performance, new followers, profile visits, impressions, website clicks, reach, etc. It can also provide you with a detailed breakdown of the demographic data of your followers like age, location, usage information, etc.
Another popular feature provided by Instagram Business Account is the ability to tag products in a picture or a post. If any user taps on that picture, all products tagged are overlaid on the image and the user can then choose to buy any of the tagged products directly through Instagram.
Image Source: https://later.com/blog/instagram-business-profile/
3) Instagram Advertisements
Instagram uses a powerful Ad Targeting algorithm that helps display targeted ads to users which means that users will only see ads for products that they have looked for in the past. This gives businesses advertising on Instagram a strong advantage over those who are not since their products are being advertised specifically to people that Instagram knows are interested in buying them.
Businesses can use their Business Accounts to set up their Marketing Campaigns. Business Accounts can then be used to track the performance of these campaigns and make changes accordingly. Instagram charges businesses based on how much reach their advertisements get through their platform.
The Contact Button allows businesses to add information on how they can be contacted. This includes details such as contact number, email address, location, etc. which are added to the profile to encourage more people to contact them.
Business Accounts also allow organizations to add Action Buttons which are personalized buttons based on their business operations such as placing an order, making a booking, reserving service, etc. These Action Buttons can be seen as a shortcut for users to avail a service commonly availed by a lot of users.
5) Link to Stories
A lot of brands now hire Social Media Influencers to market their product to their followers. An Influencer having more than 10,000 followers can directly link the Business Account of the brand that they’re advertising to their Stories. This is a common strategy used by a large number of businesses to increase their audience.
Image Source: https://later.com/blog/instagram-business-profile/
Instagram Business Analytics: Level-One Performance Metrics
Level-One Metrics can be defined as those metrics that are present in the most basic form i.e. don’t require any complex calculations and can be measured directly by Instagram. The various Level-One Performance Metrics that can be tracked for a Business Account using Instagram Business Analytics and Insights are divided into various categories. These categories are as follows:
1) Instagram Business Analytics: Profile
The various Profile Metrics to track are as follows:
- Impressions: Number of times your profile was viewed by Instagram users.
- Interactions: Number of times an action was taken on the content on your account.
- Reach: Number of unique users that viewed your profile.
- Profile Visits: Number of visits to your profile.
- Website Clicks: Number of times your visitors clicked on the website link provided on your profile.
- Contact Clicks: Number of times your visitors clicked on the call/email link provided on your profile.
- Mentions: Number of times your account was mentioned in the content by other users.
Image Source: https://napoleoncat.com/blog/understand-instagram-analytics/
2) Instagram Business Analytics: Audience
- Top Locations: Gives the names of the top 5 Cities/Countries of your followers.
- Age Range: Distribution of the ages of your followers.
- Gender: Distribution of your followers for each gender.
- Follower Hours: Average number of followers active at any point of the day.
- Follower Days: Average number of followers active at any given point during the week.
Image Source: https://influencermarketinghub.com/free-instagram-analytics-tools/
3) Instagram Business Analytics: Individual Post
- Interactions: Actions taken directly from the individual post. These actions could be opening the profile, following the page, clicking on the contact button, etc.
- Discovery: The Discovery Page on Instagram lets users view posts on the public profile of users/businesses that they do not follow but might like. The Discovery Metric helps you understand the number of unique users that were reached from the Discovery Page.
- Follows: Number of new followers gained from the post.
- Reach: Number of unique users reached by the post.
- Impressions: Total number of times the post was viewed.
- Saves: Number of times the post was saved by users in their personal directory.
- Comments: Total number of comments on that post.
Image Source: https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/11/01/instagram-analytics
4) Instagram Business Analytics: Story
- Impressions: Total number of times your Story was viewed.
- Reach: Number of unique users reached by the Story.
- Exits: Number of users that exited your Story without viewing it completely.
- Replies: Number of replies received for your Story.
- People Insights: Lists users that have seen a particular component of your Story.
Image Source: https://later.com/blog/instagram-stories-analytics/
Instagram Business Analytics: Level-Two Performance Metrics
Although Level-One Metrics are useful, they do not give much context to any analysis. For example, if you are comparing a startup’s followers to that of the company Instagram, the performance of the startup would obviously seem to be disappointing even if it is growing a lot.
Level-Two Performance Metrics for Instagram Business Analytics are primarily used to determine various benchmarks and understand what content published by you was loved most by your audience. Some of the most commonly used Level-Two Performance Metrics are as follows:
1) Instagram Business Analytics: Growth
The Growth for any metric is the percentage increase or decrease in its value over a given period of time. The Growth for any metric can be calculated using the following formula:
Growth % = [(Metric Value at Time 2 - Metric Value at Time 1) / Metric Value at Time 1] * 100
For example, Growth % in the Followers is a common performance metric that is calculated. Suppose your page had 1000 followers at the beginning of January and 1200 at the beginning of February. Then the Follower Growth for your Business Account would be 20% for the month of January.
2) Instagram Business Analytics: Rate
The Rate Metric is used to understand the performance of one Level-One Metric relative to another. The Rate Metric can be calculated using the following formula:
Rate % = (Value of Metric 1/ Value of Metric 2) *100
For example, Interaction Rate is considered to be a popular performance metric that can be defined as the percentage of followers that interacted with your content. Suppose you have 1000 followers and one of your posts has 200 interactions. Then the Interaction Rate would be 20%.
3) Instagram Business Analytics: Average
The Average Metric is used to measure the general performance of the content on your page.
For example, Average Likes is a commonly used performance metric. Suppose you wish to calculate the Average Likes of your posts in January. It can be simply calculated by the sum of Likes from all posts in January divided by the total number of posts that went up in January.
Some of the most widely used Instagram Business Analytics tools available in the market are as follows:
Image Source: https://animoto.com/blog/video-marketing/instagram-analytics-101
Instagram Insights can be used to access the native reports that are generated automatically by Instagram. These are not very advanced reports and cannot be used to track the Level-Two Performance Metrics or create custom dashboards but can only track the Level-One Performance Metrics. To use Instagram Insights, you need an active Instagram Business Account that is linked to the Facebook Page of your business.
Instagram Insights Pricing
Instagram Insights are integrated with Business Accounts which means that anyone with an active Business Account can view insights for their profile. Instagram does not charge businesses for creating a Business Account. However, businesses have to pay for any advertisements that they display.
2) Hootsuite
Image Source: https://www.stickpng.com/img/icons-logos-emojis/tech-companies/hootsuite-logo
Hootsuite is one of the most popular Social Media Management platforms that is capable of performing various roles of a Social Media Manager. It provides a large number of features that can help users perform various operations such as scheduling posts, handling customer queries, finding prospects, crisis monitoring, etc. Along with these advanced features, Hootsuite can also be used to report on various metrics that can easily help you measure the performance of your Digital Marketing Campaigns. Hootsuite can be integrated with 20+ Social Networks including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.
Hootsuite Pricing
Hootsuite offers 4 tiers i.e. Professional at $49/month, Team at $129/month, Business at $599/month, and a custom Enterprise plan. They do not follow a transparent pricing model for the Enterprise Tier. The final price depends on the business requirements and can be finalized after contacting the Sales Team at Hootsuite.
An in-depth comparison of the 4 tiers offered is as follows:
Image Source: https://www.hootsuite.com/plans
More information on Hootsuite can be found here and its pricing can be found here.
3) Iconosquare
Image Source: https://www.businessofapps.com/marketplace/iconosquare/
Iconosquare is a powerful Social Media analytics, management, and scheduling platform. It can be used to perform advanced analytics by tracking metrics that are not tracked by any other platform, create high-level and comprehensive dashboards as per requirements, manage and schedule content in a simplified and secure way, etc. along with easy integration with Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Iconosqaure is used by a lot of well-known brands such as H&M, IKEA, National Geographic, Hilton, Lufthansa, etc.
Iconosquare Pricing
Iconosqaure offers 3 paid tiers i.e. Pro at $59/month, Advanced at $99/month, and Enterprise at $179/month. Each tier has a 14-day free trial following which the user has to start paying. An in-depth comparison of the features offered in each tier is as follows:
Image Source: https://pro.iconosquare.com/plans-and-pricing
More information on Iconosquare can be found here and its pricing can be found here.
4) Squarelovin
Image Source: https://www.businessofapps.com/marketplace/squarelovin/
Squarelovin is a User-Generated Content Management tool that is designed specifically for Instagram Business Analytics. It provides extremely helpful and easy-to-understand reporting features that can help you understand what changes you need to make in your Marketing strategy to ensure growth.
Squarelovin Pricing
Along with the Basic free tier, Squarelovin offers 2 paid tiers i.e. Influencer at €9,90/month (≈ $11.8/month) and Business at €14,90/month (≈ $17.7/month). A comparison of the features of the three tiers is as follows:
Image Source: https://squarelovin.com/en/instagram-analytics
More information on Squarelovin can be found here and its pricing can be found here.
5) Socialbakers
Image Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Socialbakers_Logo.svg
Socialbakers is an AI-powered Social Media Marketing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform. This platform allows businesses to easily gather Marketing Intelligence Data and perform in-depth analysis on it to measure how well their campaigns are performing. Socialbakers AI-powered system is capable of providing personalized recommendations to Marketers making their jobs easier and faster. Socialbaker is used by more than 100 Fortune 500 companies including Samsung, Walmart, Airbus, McDonald’s, etc.
Socialbakers Pricing
Socialbalers offers 2 paid tiers i.e. Essential and Complete Solution. The pricing for Essential is based on the number of accounts that have to be connected. The pricing for 10 accounts is $200/month and 20 accounts is $400/month. The Complete Solution does not follow a transparent pricing model and the final price is based on business and data requirements.
An in-depth comparison of the Essential and Complete Solution is as follows:
Image Source: https://www.socialbakers.com/suite/buy
More information on Socialbakers can be found here and its pricing can be found here.
6) Sprout Social
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Sprout Social allows you to get a holistic view of all your Instagram data in a meaningful way and let you break down data in every possible way. It helps you view the entire network of your Instagram accounts and let you know how your paid and regular posts are doing. With the help of Sprout Social, one can easily monitor how their Marketing team is doing and measure the effectiveness of Marketing Campaigns. Users can also schedule posts and get suggestions from Sprout Social for content.
Sprout Social Pricing
Sprout Social offers its service in a Standard package for $89 per month, a Professional package for $149, and an Advanced package for $249.
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More information on Sprout Social can be found here and its pricing can be found here.
7) Buffer
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Buffer is a personal favorite tool for retail businesses that want to increase their conversion rates, Sales on multiple social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Shopify Store. It provides a mobile app to manage your Instagram account from anywhere and allows you to schedule posts with data-driven suggestions. Buffer comes with a wide range of knowledge bases that you can access with your paid subscription.
Buffer Pricing
Buffer offers its service for free that includes basic publishing tools and page builder. It also offers a paid subscription for $5 per month that includes all the services from the free package and Analytics and Engagement tools.
More information on Buffer can be found here and its pricing can be found here.
Conclusion
This article provided you with an in-depth understanding of what Instagram Business Accounts are, how they’re useful for your business and what are the key metrics that you can track to measure the performance of your Instagram Marketing campaigns. It also listed various Instagram Business Analytics tools that can easily help you keep track of all required metrics.
Most modern businesses use multiple platforms for their Marketing Campaigns to reach a wider audience. This results in a complex situation since Marketing data is spread across the databases of all the platforms used and a common analysis cannot be performed without integrating data from all these sources first. Making an in-house data integration platform is a complex task that will require high resources. Businesses can instead use automated data integration platforms like Hevo.
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