If you’re like most Instagram users, you probably only track a few Instagram metrics. Maybe you’re checking how many likes and comments your posts are getting, or how many followers you’ve acquired in the last month. But do you know which Instagram metrics matter and which don’t?
In this blog post, we’ll take a look at the only Instagram metrics you should be tracking in 2022. We’ll also include some benchmarks so you can see how your performance compares to other Instagram users.
The Most Important Instagram Metrics to Track in 2022
Here are the most important Instagram metrics for 2022.
Subscriber Growth Rate
Follower Growth Rate measures how fast your Instagram account gains or loses followers. This important metric shows how well your content is performing on Instagram and whether your target audience is engaged with your brand.
While followers can be advertised as a measure of vanity, your follower growth rate is a good indicator of whether your Instagram marketing campaigns are working. If you see a steady growth in your following, new people are more likely to discover and engage with your brand. While the exact number of your followers is less important, the rate at which that number changes is a good metric to track.
When tracking subscriber growth rate, be sure to take a look at both total subscriber count and net subscriber growth. Net Follower Growth is the number of new followers you gain minus those you may have lost.
Follower Growth Rate Benchmark: The average Instagram account shows a follower growth rate of 1.69% every month. If you haven’t reached that milestone, check out these tips for growing your Instagram followers.
Reach and Reach Rate
Reach is an Instagram metric that tells you the number of people who have seen your post. This is different from impressions, which measure the number of times your post has been viewed. So if the same person sees your post three times, it will count as three impressions. But each user only counts once in reach, making it a more accurate way to measure how many people have seen your content.
Reach is another Instagram metric that shows the percentage of followers who see your post. To calculate reach, divide a post’s total reach by the total number of followers. For example, if you have 500 reach and 2,000 subscribers, your reach rate would be 25%.
Reach Benchmark: The average reach rate for brands with high followings is 12% for posts and 2% for stories.
Subscriber engagement
Of course, you want more people to see your content. But you also want the people who see it to really care about it, right? This is where subscriber engagement comes into play. This Instagram metric measures the average number of times each of your followers interact with your content. The higher this number, the better.
To calculate follower engagement, simply take the total number of engagements in your account (likes, comments, shares, and shares) and divide it by your total number of followers. Then multiply that number by 100 to get the percentage.
Here’s an example: Let’s say your Instagram account has 5,000 followers and you get a total of 1,000 interactions every month. This will give you a 10% subscriber engagement rate (500/5000×100).
Engagement by Follower: The average engagement rate on Instagram is between 1% and 5%. Engagement rates across subscriber benchmarks are less documented, but you can assume that the gain is in excess of 5%. Learn how to calculate your engagement rate here.
Engagement by Reach
Reach engagement rate measures the percentage of people who have seen your content and interacted with it in some way. This includes accounts that aren’t following your Page but may have seen your ads, videos, or Instagram stories.
To calculate your engagement rate by reach, divide your total engagement rate by the number of subscribers your content has reached. Then multiply that number by 100 to get the percentage.
For example, let’s say you launched an Instagram ad campaign and your ad got 50 likes and 400 reach. This would give you an engagement rate of 12.5%.
Engagement by Reach Benchmark: While there are no hard and fast rules, a good Instagram engagement rate by Reach Benchmark is anything above 5%.
Website traffic
The social does not exist in a vacuum. In fact, the best social media strategies look at their entire digital ecosystem and how social media can play a role in driving traffic to their website or app. You want your customers to not only see your content, but also take action, whether it’s a purchase, a newsletter signup, or an app download. That’s why it’s important to track website traffic from Instagram.
There are several ways to track this Instagram metric:
Google Analytics: You can track how many people are visiting your site from Instagram using Google Analytics. Go to Reports → Traffic Sources → Channels and select Social Media. From here, you will be able to see which social channels are bringing traffic to your website.
Instagram Insights: If you have an Instagram business profile, you can also track website clicks from Instagram using Instagram Insights. To do this, go to your Instagram profile, click on the three lines in the top right corner and select Insights. Then select “Available Accounts”and scroll down to see the taps of the website.
Hootsuite: Hootsuite Team, Business, and Enterprise users get the added benefit of Ow.ly Links, which add detailed tracking options to your Instagram links. To use Ow.ly links, select Shorten with Ow.ly in Composer. Then select “Add Tracking”and set custom or preset options. Click Apply. The data from your Ow.ly links will show up in Hootsuite Analytics and you can include it in your social media reports.
Website Traffic Benchmark: Hey, the more traffic, the better. When it comes to website clicks from Instagram, there really isn’t too much. If you’re not getting any traffic, consider how you’re using your links and what can be improved.
Participation in history
Instagram Stories are used by 500 million accounts daily. Not to mention, 58% of users say they are more interested in a brand after seeing it in Stories. This is not a feature you want to miss!
But it’s not enough to just post stories on Instagram. You need to make sure people view and interact with them. Shares, replies, likes, and profile visits are all important Instagram metrics that can help you measure the success of your stories.
So how can we track engagement in Story?
There are several ways. First, once you’ve posted a story on your Instagram business profile, clicking the eye icon on your story will allow you to see who’s viewed it.
For even more detailed information, click on the graph icon. This will give you an overview of shares, replies, profile visits and sticker clicks.
Once you’ve collected your data, there are two ways to measure the engagement of your story.
- To measure awareness: Divide your story’s reach by the number of followers to see what percentage of your followers are watching your stories.
- To measure actions: Divide total interactions by total reach and multiply by 100.
Story Engagement Benchmark: The average Instagram story reaches 5% of your audience, so anything above that is a home run.
Share video on Instagram
Instagram Reels becomes the fastest growing Instagram feature. There are many ways to measure Reel’s performance, from reach to plays, engagement, and more. But we want to focus on Reel stock. Why? Because stocks can double, triple, or even quadruple your reach. And that’s something to watch out for!
You can track your Instagram Reels performance using Instagram’s built-in Insights feature.
To view Reel’s Instagram posts, select any Reel and click on the three dots in the bottom right corner. Then click View statistics. Data about likes, reposts, comments and saves will be available here. Be sure to compare reach across different videos to see what content works best.
Reels shares the benchmark: once again, there’s more here. If your content is regularly shared, you are doing everything right. Be sure to pay attention to posts that get a lot of shares and analyze what made them so successful. You can then reproduce this formula for future reels.
New Instagram metrics in 2022
Instagram is constantly evolving, which means that the platform’s metrics are also constantly changing. To keep up with the latest Instagram trends, you need to be aware of the new metrics that will be important in 2022.
Here are some of the most important Instagram metrics to keep an eye on:
- Story View Speed: This new Instagram metric shows how many people are watching your stories from start to finish. This is a good way to measure the quality of your content and see if people are really interested in what you share.
- Dropout Rate: Instagram will now show you how many people are watching your videos over time. This is a great metric to track if you’re using Instagram to promote your products or services as it will give you an idea of how interesting your videos are.
- Engaged Audiences: Use this metric to see demographics including location, age, and gender for everyone who has interacted with your content. This includes people who follow you and people who don’t follow you.
- Reel Interaction: The total number of likes, comments, shares, and saves your reels have received.
Here it is! The most important Instagram metrics for 2022. Do you want to keep learning? Check out our complete guide to Instagram Analytics for business today.