Kassaundra 0:00
By now, you all know my love for data and using it to help you create strategic content. So we're diving into another social media data series this month, and what better way to start it off than a little refresher on all the data you have in your Instagram app.
Kassaundra 0:25
Welcome back to Schooled in Socials. If you've been following me for a bit, you know, I'm on a mission to help all of you reach your big business goals using the power of data so you can create strategic content that will actually get you the results that you're looking for. If you haven't had a chance to listen to our first data series back in June now would be a great time to head back and get those under your belt before we kick off this new series. I'll leave the links to the episodes in the show notes so that you can easily check them out.
Kassaundra 1:01
Now for this series, we're going to take it back a bit and focus on Instagram data 101, because I want you to have a solid foundation to work from as we move forward this month. So the first question we need to tackle in Instagram data 101 is What data do I even have access to in my Instagram app? The short answer is a lot. We're going to cover what all of that data means and how you can easily access it in just a minute. But to give a longer answer to that original question, you have access to how many people you've reached with your content which Instagram breaks down for you by content type as well as by individual post, profile activity which tells you the number of profile visits, external link taps and follows that you've had, how many people have engaged with your content which they also break down by content type, as well as by individual post follower data, which includes your follower count and demographics of your audience, such as location, gender, age range and active times while they're on the app. And you can also find specific data points for your likes, comments, shares and saves, and most recently, Instagram is adding the data point of views, which was only previously available on our reels, to all of our content. I know that list probably makes you want to go running for the hills, but like with all 101 courses that we took in college, I want to give you the whole overview, and then as we move into this month's series, we're going to get more specific, and we're going to hone in so that you can actually use this data to make decisions about your content, and it feels doable for you, and dare I even say easy for you.
Kassaundra 3:03
Now that you have an idea of all the data at your fingertips on Instagram, let's break down what all of it even means. So let's jump in to a little vocab lesson, and we're going to start with the data you probably see the most on your posts, which include likes, comments, saves and shares. So likes are how many people hit that little heart button when they saw your content. Pretty straightforward, comments are how many times a comment was left on that piece of content. Saves are how many people saved your piece of content to view again later. And shares are how many times that piece of content was shared in one of two ways, either to someone's story or with another user via the DMs. So you can share content by either sharing it in your stories or when you click that share button, as you probably know, you can send it directly to someone in a DM. Now let's jump into the data. You have to dig a little deeper for when you're analyzing your content, and those include reach, profile visits, external link taps, follows and now views. Reach is how many unique accounts got shown that piece of content, and Instagram actually breaks it down for us into our follower reach and our non follower reach. So follower reach is the percentage of people who saw that post and were your followers. Non follower reach is the percentage of people who saw that post and were not your followers. Now you might be thinking, well, that kind of sounds like views in my mind. So what are views then? Fabulous question. Views don't represent the number of people who saw your content, but instead the number of times your content was looked at. For example, you could reach 100 unique people with a reel. Okay, 100 people had that reel pop up for them, but your reel could actually have 200 views, because each of those people watched your reel twice. So think reach is the number of people who saw the content. Views are the number of times your content was looked at. So one person can view a piece of content multiple times. So typically you'll see that your views number is higher than your reach number. Okay, now that we've got that little comparison out of the way, the next data point you have access to are profile visits. And profile visits are how many times people navigated from that post that you're looking at to your profile, or if you're looking in the professional dashboard, it will show you how many people visited your profile within a certain date range. External Link taps is just a fancy term for link clicks. So think your link in bio, it's the number of times someone clicked on your link in bio, either from a specific post, if you're looking at the post level or given a certain date range. And finally, follows is just as it sounds. It's the number of people who followed you, either overall, based on a specific date range or from a specific post, knowing the definitions of these 10 data points encompasses pretty much everything you're going to need in order to analyze your data, no matter what kinds of goals you're trying to achieve in your business.
Kassaundra 6:54
We know what we have access to. We understand what those numbers mean. Now, where in the heck do we find all of this data? There are two main places within the Instagram app where you're going to find data reported, and those are the professional dashboard and the post insights. And each place serves a little bit of a different purpose when it comes to your data. So the professional dashboard is where you're going to find data reported based on a specific date range. So for example, over the last 30 days, over the last 90 days, within the last seven days, okay, so that's a spot where you can kind of look at trends over time. The post insights, which you can find by opening one of your specific posts, gives you the data just for that post. Both spots can be useful, depending on what you're trying to decide, but as a social media strategist, I actually like to gather all of my data from the post insights, because it's a more specific and I find it a little easier to navigate post insights than I do the professional dashboard, and it can help me make better content decisions. While, on the other hand, the professional dashboard is good at giving you a feel of the health of your account, or helping you make some content decisions when you're just starting out and you really aren't in a season where you can dive into each post individually.
Kassaundra 8:25
There you have it, Instagram data 101. A nice little refresher on what data you have access to within the Instagram app, what it means, and where you can find it all. So you can keep this information handy as we move forward with our data series this month. Now, if your head is still spinning a little bit, you don't have to panic. I dedicate a whole module within my post and Profit Course to breaking down Instagram data. So if you're in a season where you are ready to truly get strategic with your content, my course will take you from data 101, kind of like I started with you here today, and get you all the way to strategy master.
Kassaundra 9:11
Alright, cool coffee, friends. Thanks so much for listening. If you're loving getting schooled in socials, make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode. Also, I would love it if you left a review so that other teacher authors like you can start getting schooled in socials too. All right, I'll see you in the next episode.