Which Instagram Insights Actually Matter? (real talk, tho)

Which instagram insights should you track in your business?

What social media insights actually matter when you're using your social media to grow your business, Instagram, Facebook tiktok. They all give us these beautiful insights pages that have all these different things. We've got reach. We've got clicks, we've got engagement and we've got impressions. 

What actually matters. What should you be looking at? 



I've been a social media manager for six or seven years. I've been teaching social media for several years and I have three rules.  To give you to help you actually utilize those insights. Actually use them to help you get ahead instead of tapping the insights button and opening it and being overwhelmed by graphs and charts and pie charts and all that shit. 

I'm guessing if you asked about this it's because you're maybe a little bit of a type, a personality and you know that all this data is available. . And so you want to stop just solely relying on your instincts and like how you feel about your content and you want to get some actual data. We want to get out of our head out of our feelings and into the data and use that data to help us. So firstly, 

I like to split the difference. A lot of social media managers will supply their clients with these beautiful insights. And I have done it in the past, you know, here's the chart, but there are things that indicate that our content is doing well, that we can't find on the chart, on the graphs and on the pie charts. So something like that. 

I do think that you need to balance it a little bit. You need to go a little bit on instinct and a little bit on feeling. 

Here's an example, say you write a post and it doesn't pop off. It doesn't get the most reach of all of your posts that week. But you get a comment from Susan, from Oklahoma and Susan says. I really needed to hear this today. Thank you. 

That's huge, right? That's community building. That's telling you that you're going in the right direction. You just impacted Susan's life with your content. So who cares if it wasn't the most successful post of the week? That's why in the content strategy that I teach all my students, we have three types of content. 

We have growth content, nurture content and sales content. So I would consider that some seriously nurturing content it's okay. That it didn't get the most impressions or the most reach for the week because it actually helped us get towards our like greater business goals. Goals , our vision goals and our mission goals, and like building your business goals. 

That's rule one. . I know it's kind of mushy,  but don't fully rely on the analytics and don't fully rely on your feelings. You've got to look at both. You've got to balance how you feel about both. 

Fun fact, you know what insights matter for podcasts? Well, one of them is how many reviews you have. So if you're enjoying this show or if you're going to take anything that you learned from me and you're going to use it and you want to repay me, I would accept. Five stars or a positive review, whatever moves you. Thank you. Just had to just shove in that shameless. Self-promotion.  Rule two, do not look at your insights too frequently. Take my dad's advice. When it comes to the stock market. When I started investing, my dad said, Jenna, do not hover over this. Do not look at it every day, even. Maybe look at your insights every week. Look at it every month, look at it every three months. Like you need to have a bigger picture of data in order to even get a clear view of what the data is actually saying. If you're checking in on your insights every single day, you're honestly just going to drive yourself crazy. 

Rule three. I'm going to take a page out of Amy Porterfield's book. I don't know if you listen to her podcasts, but every now and then if she's about to say something really important, she goes. If you're multitasking, come back to me because I really want you to hear this. And if you are a listener of her podcast, you know, that, that was an amazing impression I just did. Anyway. 

If you're multitasking, come back to me. The next rule is, do not. Beat yourself up for analytics. You haven't intentionally tried to change. People come to me all the time and they say, Jenna, which insights should I be looking at? Which ones matter? Imagine I opened Instagram and I went, oh man. My reach is so down, but I just had a huge flash sale and I've been selling really hard for five days. 

If I've been selling really hard for five days, I haven't been creating growth content. I haven't been creating fun and funny content and that's the stuff that gets me massive reach. Right. So I'm not going to beat myself up for that. That actually looks like a success. What I'm going to look at if I just had a big flash sale is I'm going to look at website clicks. 

That is what matters today. Profile views, maybe as well. Cause that sort of brings them one step closer to my website. That's what matters. 

 If your big goal right now is to increase your visibility and grow your following and get new eyeballs on you, then you're probably creating a whole bunch of growth content. If you aren't here is the sign that you should be because that's how you grow. 

And then you're going to be like, okay, great. Did my reach go up? When I tried to increase my reach? Right. 

Our next rule. We want to see a general increase over time. So when you're looking at that big. Uh, overarching here's my three months yet. We want to see the numbers, like generally going up. It's just, you know, again, with the stock market, they. People say like, wow, if your stock isn't going up, then it's going down. 

Sure. I guess we generally want to see numbers going up. . We generally want to be getting more eyeballs on you, more engagement, more reach over time. Cause that's what we're here for. And if you look at your insights and you aren't getting that, then please refer to the previous rule. Don't beat yourself up about it. Get proactive. Let's get excited about it. 

Let's go. Oh, my numbers have been going down. What can I do to change that? And then maybe furthermore, Hmm. I haven't been making sales, maybe that's because I haven't been getting new eyeballs on me. Maybe I need to stop selling so hard and start focusing on growing more. You see how the rules feed into each other? 

My favorite thing to do is for you to ask a question like what insights actually matter. And for me to not answer it, To answer something else. Instead, but listen,  I'm marrying an accountant in a couple of weeks and in our household, he can be the one that looks at the graphs and I can be the one that. 

Decides what colors they should be. 



I am going to leave you with something super actionable so you can make a banging piece of content. Two day. Here's what it is. 

Decide right now, if you want to grow, nurture or sell. Okay. Decide right now. We're all going to say it on three. Okay. Ready? 1, 2, 3. Perfect. That's what you're doing right now. Go into your insights. If you said you're trying to grow, I want you to look at the post within the last 90 days that got the most reach. 

I look at that post guess why it did so well and either repeat why you think it did so well or repost that exact same post that's your homework. If you said nurture, I want you to sort your posts. Look at what got the most comments. In the last 90 days. Go look at that post. Why do you think it performed? Well,  

take an educated guess then either repeat that, make a new post or repost that same old thing who cares. If you said sales, you can see where this is going. Find the post that generated either the most website, traffic, or the most profile views. And repeat that post as well. 

We're making educated guesses  📍 on how to get you more of whatever you are working for. And remember the rule. When you're in there looking at your insights. You are not shaming yourself. You are not feeling guilty for insights. You have an already tried to grow for at least a couple of months. 

All right, my sweet little cuckoo birds. I will see you in the next episode and Hey, if you're on your way there and you pass by an option to give this show stars, it would be great. If you could just toss me five of those. Love you for it.