How to Access and Use Instagram Insights – A Quick Guide

How to Access and Use Instagram Insights – A Quick Guide

Instagram keeps evolving and changing – and so do its insights. If you lost track of what’s changed in Instagram Insights recently, here’s a rundown of what the feature looks like now, what’s available, and how to track the critical metrics. 

In-depth Instagram analytics & reports

In-depth Instagram analytics & reports

Measure your Instagram marketing results. Track competitors and improve performance – with an all-in-one social media tool.

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What is Instagram insights?

Instagram Insights is none other than a look into your Instagram performance – from your follower growth to your content reach and engagement. By looking at your Instagram analytics, you can see exactly what results your efforts (and budget) bring on Instagram, which is key for a successful Instagram strategy.

You’ll find Instagram Insights inside your Instagram account, and you can also use third-party apps like NapoleonCat. In this article, we’ll take a detailed look at both.

Why you should use Instagram insights

You can of course just go on Instagram, post your content, and never worry about the impact on your audience and on your business.

But why would you do that? 

Instead, looking at your Instagram Insights in regular time intervals will help you know:

  • How your Instagram strategy works in reality and make necessary adjustments to get better results
  • What kind of content to post and when to post it to reach your target audience
  • Who your target audience on Instagram even is
  • How often to post on Instagram
  • How your competitors’ content performs (bear with me; I’ll explain how to do that later) and what that means for your strategy
  • And many other things.

It’s a really smart habit to check your Instagram Insights weekly or monthly and use the conclusions to plan your next social media moves. 

How to access insights on Instagram

You can access Instagram Insights in two ways:

Native Instagram Insights

To access Instagram Insights, make sure your Instagram profile is set to public.

You’ll also need to switch your personal Instagram account to a professional account – either business or creator account. You’ll need it to be able to access all kinds of insights. 

Here’s how to do it:

  • Tap your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
  • Tap Edit profile.
  • Tap Switch to professional account and Continue.
  • Select a Category for your business and tap Done.
  • Select Business and tap Next.
  • Add contact details and tap Next. To skip this step, tap Don’t use my contact info.
  • To share logins using Accounts Center, tap Login to Facebook. You can follow the steps to connect your business account to a Facebook Page associated with your business. This step is optional, and will make it easier to use all of the features available for businesses across Meta. 

You can also skip this step.

  • Set up your professional account by completing the optional steps or tap X in the top right corner to return to your profile.

Once you have a professional business account, you can access the Insights in two ways:

  1. Go to your profile and tap “Professional dashboard.” You’ll see it under your bio. 
  2. Go to your profile menu by tapping the three lines in the top-right corner. Scroll down to the “For professionals” section and tap “Insights”.
instagram insights - accesing native Instagram insights
Finding Insights in your Instagram profile menu

Instagram Insights in NapoleonCat

To access Instagram Insights in NapoleonCat, you’ll need to connect your Instagram account to NapoleonCat. And to do that, you’ll need to connect your Facebook business page first. It only takes like 20 seconds. 

instagram insights - connecting social media profiles to NapoleonCat
Adding social media accounts in NapoleonCat

(If you don’t have a page, create one first, even if you’re – like me – not going to use it. ;))

Once you connect your Instagram business account, you’ll be able to see your Instagram Insights in the Analytics tab in NapoleonCat. 

instagram insights - Analytics tab in NapoleonCat

Now, what do we have there? Let’s take a closer look at each of the sections both in the native analytics tool on Instagram, and in NapoleonCat’s Analytics.

Instagram insights explained

What you’ll find in the native Instagram Insights

Overview

When you go to Insights from the Settings menu, you’ll first see the Overview. It looks like this:

instagram insights - overview of native Instagram insights
Instagram Insights overview

You can choose a relevant period of time you want to see the numbers for:

  • last 7 days
  • last 14 days
  • last 30 days
  • previous month
  • or last 90 days
instagram insights - selecting the date range for Instagram insights
Selecting the date range for your Instagram Insights

So, essentially, the insights are viewable up until 3 months back.

The overview shows you the following:

  • Number of accounts reached
  • Number of accounts engaged
  • Total followers

Each metric shows the growth or drop experienced over the selected time.

When you scroll down, you’ll also see the last pieces of content you’ve shared, and active promotions, if you’re running any. In the case of ads, you’ll be able to see the current and past ads and see their individual performance, including:

  • Reach
  • Interactions: likes, saves, comments, and shares
  • Ad goal (so, for example, if the ad goal was profile visits, then the number of profile visits from that ad
  • Plays, initial plays, and replays
  • And the status of your ad campaign, including the budget settings and spend

For Stories, you’ll additionally see the following activity metrics when you tap “Stories” and then go to an individual Story:

  • Forwards
  • Next story
  • Back
  • Exited

Accounts reached

When you go to the “Accounts reached” tab, you’ll see:

  • A breakdown of follower vs. non-follower accounts that have seen your content
instagram insights - accounts reached breakdown
The accounts reached breakdown on Instagram
  • The overall number of impressions of your content 
  • A breakdown by content type: Stories, posts, and reels
instagram insights - breakdown by content type
Accounts reached by content type
  • Top viewed content. When you tap “See all”, you’ll be able to see the reach for all content in the specified time frame
  • Profile activity, i.e. people who viewed your profile, tapped external links, or your business address.

Accounts engaged

The “Accounts engaged” tab includes information about: 

  • The total number of engaged accounts with a breakdown into followers and non-followers
  • The number broken down by content type
  • And by top content, letting you see which content has performed best. Tapping “See all” will take you to the engagement numbers for all your content posted in that time frame
  • Content interactions – the total number of times people:
    • liked, commented, saved, or shared your posts, 
    • shared or replied to your Stories, 
    • liked, commented, saved, or shared your Reels
    • commented or shared your live videos

Total followers

The “Total followers tab” will give you some information about your audience:

  • The total number of followers 
  • Audience growth, including follows and unfollows
  • Top locations by city and country
  • Gender and age range
instagram insights - Instagram followers breakdown by age and gender
Instagram followers by age and gender
  • And most active times for your followers – which is a good indication of the best times to post your content.
instagram insights - most active times for followers section
Most active times on Instagram

What you’ll find in the Instagram Analytics in NapoleonCat

Here’s all the data you’ll find when going to your Instagram Analytics inside NapoleonCat. 

Note: you can view all insights in the selected date range by adjusting it in the calendar on the top right. You can also select your custom date range, unlike in the native Instagram Insights tool in the Instagram app – which is especially helpful if you want to view the results for specific campaigns.

Summary

  • The most important information at a glance, including:
  • Followers
  • Posts
  • Interactions
  • Engagement rate
instagram insights - most important Instagram metrics
Key Instagram metrics at a glance
  • Daily followers on a timeline showing how your following changes over time, day by day.

Followers

The followers tab will give you a more detailed and nuanced look at your Instagram audience. Here’s what it includes:

  • Followers daily on a graph
  • Followers change daily, showing you the net gain or loss to evaluate audience growth trends
instagram insights - followers change in NapoleonCat
Followers change daily in NapoleonCat
  • Followers by country
  • Follower world map, with the largest followings highlighted
  • Followers by city
  • Followers by age
  • Followers by gender

Engagement  

The engagement tab will give you all the details about your engagement:

  • Engagement rate – calculated as the proportion of followers or impressions, quantifying audience engagement on each post or over time.
  • Interactions daily – likes, comments and shares
instagram insights - Daily interactions in NapoleonCat
Daily interactions on an Instagram profile
  • Interactions by days of week – super helpful to inform your posting strategy and frequency
instagram insights - Interactions by days of the week
Interactions by days of the week

Reach

The Reach tab shows you all the data relevant to the reach of your Instagram content, including:

  • Total reach –  total number of unique users who have been served any activity from your page, including posts, posts by others, mentions, and check-ins over a specified period
  • Content impressions
  • Daily profile views
  • CTA button clicks

Content

The content tab includes all the data relevant to your Instagram content, including:

  • Posts by day
  • Post engagement by post type
  • Post engagement by number of hashtags
  • Post engagement by days of the week
  • Post engagement by hour – super helpful for determining the best times to post
instagram insights - post engagement by hours
Post engagement by hours
  • A list of posts and reels by top engagement rate

Hashtags

The hashtags tab includes:

  • A hashtag cloud
instagram insights - hashtag cloud in NapoleonCat
A hashtag cloud in NapoleonCat
  • A hashtag list with a breakdown of hashtags used in your content and their average engagement
instagram insights - hashtag list in NapoleonCat
A hashtag list in NapoleonCat

Stories

The last tab is all about your Instagram Stories stats, including views and engagement metrics like likes and replies. 

Following Instagram Insights for your competitors

All the above is not all when you use NapoleonCat. You also get Instagram Insights for any public Instagram profile you’d like to track for inspiration or competitor benchmarking.

You’ll be able to track most of the metrics you can for managed profiles (excluding reach and Story insights.)

And you can even compare your insights to selected competitors and compare results across multiple Instagram accounts you manage.

Competitor Benchmarking Tool

Competitor Benchmarking Tool

Track your competitors’ social media activity across Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube. Compare multiple accounts side by side and refine your own marketing strategy – with an all-in-one social media tool.

Try NapoleonCat for free

14-day trial period. No credit card required.

Creating Instagram Insights reports with NapoleonCat

On top of that, when you use NapoleonCat, you can also easily turn that Instagram data into a nice-looking Instagram report that you can brand with your logo and even automatically schedule to get created and sent to the right people, for example, your clients:

instagram insights - sample page from a report generated in NapoleonCat
A sample page from a NapoleonCat report

So, is the native Instagram Insights good enough for my business?

Instagram Insights is a free Instagram analytics app, and it’s good for starters. It does lack historical data that goes back more than three months, though, and some in-depth metrics. 

Pros:

  • It’s free
  • It’s easily accessed from your Instagram profile
  • It’s good for beginners
  • It lets you track the results of your everyday activities

Cons:

  • Most of the data is limited to only 90 days back
  • It’s hard to get an overview of view of your metrics
  • Some data is limited – for example, you’ll only see the top 5 countries and cities your followers come from
  • You can’t analyze other profiles, just your own
  • If you want to create a report, you’ll need to do that manually

The answer to the cons?

Using NapoleonCat’s Instagram management tools for business, of course. 🙂 You can even try them for free for 14 days and make your own comparison. 

Social Media Inbox - Simplify Instagram Management

Simplify Instagram Business
Management with One Tool

  • Manage & reply to comments and DMs in one place.
  • Monitor ad comments from multiple accounts.
  • Automate answers to repetitive questions.
  • Schedule posts to multiple accounts, on desktop.
  • Analyze performance and monitor hashtags.
  • Keep track of your competition.
  • Create or schedule in-depth reports in seconds.
Try 2 weeks for free (no credit card required)

FAQs:

How to view Insights on Instagram

To view your Instagram Insights:

  • Go to your profile on the Instagram app
  • Tap the three lines for the menu
  • Scroll down to “Insights” and tap to access the analytics.

You can also tap the  “Professional dashboard” below your profile bio. 

How to view Insights on Instagram Story

To see the insights for an individual Instagram Story, go to Insights > Overview and scroll down to Stories. You’ll see all the information on your past Stories in a selected date range , and you can sort the results by reach or engagement to compare their performance. 

Where is Insights on Instagram?

You’ll find it in your profile menu – the three lines in the top right corner of your Instagram profile. Tap it and you’ll find “Insights” when you scroll down a little until you reach the “For professionals” section.

How to turn on Insights on Instagram

Instagram Insights are available for anyone having a professional account – business or creator. If you can’t see it, you’ll need to turn your personal account into a professional account. Here’s how to do it:

  • Tap your profile picture in the bottom right to go to your profile.
  • Tap Edit profile.
  • Tap Switch to professional account and Continue.
  • Select a Category for your business and tap Done.
  • Select Business and tap Next.
  • Add contact details and tap Next. To skip this step, tap Don’t use my contact info.
  • To share logins using Accounts Center tap Login to Facebook. You can follow the steps to connect your business account to a Facebook Page associated with your business. This step is optional, and will make it easier to use all of the features available for businesses across Meta. 

You can also skip this step.

  • Set up your professional account by completing the optional steps or tap X on the top right corner to return to your profile.

Why can’t I see Insights on Instagram?

You might have a personal account – you’ll need to turn it into a professional account to view the insights

What does forward mean on Instagram Insights?

Story taps forward include the number of times people tap your current Story to move on to your next Story.

How to see post insights on Instagram personal account

Technically, Instagram Insights are not available on personal accounts, but some users have reported being able to access them in their menus. So, you’ll need to check your profile menu and see if Insights are available there.

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