Instagram is well known in the world of online marketing for its often phenomenally high engagement rates – but it’s sometimes tempting to ask just how effective that level of engagement it is when it comes to converting followers into active ticket purchasers.
By learning just how well Instagram is working for you, it should give you more of an idea regarding how best to spend your time on the platform, and whether the hours you’re putting into Instagram promotion is really justified. The end result can be highly beneficial: you’ll know how further drive and encourage engagement, and you can also learn how correctly allocate your marketing resources.
In order to follow how well your Instagram efforts are paying off, you’re going to have to perfect the art of tracking Instagram analytics. We’ve put together a quick guide on how to do this effectively, from knowing how to track Instagram analytics to understanding exactly which areas you should be tracking. Ready to find out more? Read on and discover a whole world of marketing opportunities from your laptop or mobile device here.
Understanding Instagram Insights
There’s no doubt about the fact that Instagram is an incredibly brand-friendly platform. The numbers speak for themselves – with over 800 million users, brands can get the kind of exposure and reach which would once upon a time been beyond their wildest dreams.
What’s more, Instagram users are using the platform increasingly to find out about the latest trends and developments in their area of interest, and whether that’s via their favourite influencers or directly from the brands themselves, this opens a huge number of opportunities for growth.
If you haven’t already, we’d highly recommend upgrading your Instagram account to a free business profile. This will allow you to easily track your Instagram posts, and see how well they are performing in your target market.
With real-time metrics, and a whole host of tricks and tips, you’ll be able to gain a real insight into how your Instagram posts are creating ticket sales and driving active engagement.
Which Metrics Should I Track?
Instagram packs in a whole lot of data, and unless you’re selective, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. It’s always best to figure out in advance which metrics you want to track, and to ascertain which ones are going to provide you with the insights your event business needs.
It’s always worth bearing in mind that while they can be very useful, cold, hard figures will only ever get you so far. No tool or piece of technology can ever truly replace the subtleties and insights of human intelligence – no matter which metrics you’re looking at, it’s vital to be able to interpret them in a way which will give you the answers you require. It’s not just about what you’re looking for, but also what it means for your event, and how to use those figures to boost your sales!
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Followers
Instagram insights will easily allow you to gain a greater understand of who your followers are, where they come from, and some sort of information regarding their background and identity. You’ll be able to see important demographic details such as their age, their gender, and their location… all things which will help you boost the effectiveness of your marketing. What’s more, this is exactly the kind of data that will help you attract those all-important sponsors, too.
Instagram’s analytic tools will allow you to take this kind of data further, as well. With certain sophisticated third-party tools, you’ll be able to see the correlation between your posting frequency and your follower growth, which should allow you to tweak your posting schedule for maximum impact.
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Non-Followers and Lurkers
A lot of the time, your postings will be seen by people who aren’t actively following you, but instead are hanging back in the shadows, and catching up with your posts as and when it suits them. These people are known in the business as ‘lurkers’ – it’s not the most attractive name, but it refers directly to those people who are coming across your marketing material via the hashtags you choose to use.
By tracking your lurkers, you can maximise the effectiveness of your posts. How? Well, perhaps you noticed a surge in visitors by posting a particular hashtag, but very few of those visitors were converted into active followers. This suggests, therefore, that the hashtag in question wasn’t adequately connected to your message, or didn’t hit the right spot with your target market. By following the lurker metric, you can learn to tighten your message and use hashtags more effectively.
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Post Engagement
In an ideal world, every single post you upload onto Instagram would result in a flurry of likes, shares, and other types of engagements. Of course, this isn’t always the reality, and as such, it’s important to keep a track on how well your posts are doing in regards to audience engagement. With this metric, you’ll be able to see just how many comments etc your posts are getting, and when peak engagement happens. This way, you’ll be able to fine tune your posting schedule, and get more bang for your buck.
What’s more, this metric will let you know which types of posts garner the most engagement. Do you followers love your videos? Are they more into pictures, or stories? Do they prefer images of venues, or of people? All of these things can be significant in boosting interaction.
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Story Engagement
Recent statistics have shown that over 30% of the most viewed Instagram stories are those coming from businesses, not individuals. Are your Instagram stories hitting the right sort of figures? This metric will help you decide for yourself.
Instagram Insights will help you see whether or not your audience are simply skipping over your stories, or giving them the attention you feel they deserve. For example, if they’re clicking ‘back’ to view your stories for a second or third time, you can happily say that they’re garnering the kind of curiosity you’re after. If not… well, it’s time to rethink your story strategy.
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Influencer Engagement
Instagram influencers are a huge deal these days – in 2017, the amount spent on influencer marketing topped the $1 billion mark, and that’s only set to grow this year. If you want to get involved with influencer marketing, you need to be paying close attention to the metrics ‘top follower’ and ‘top mention’ – figure out who your most powerful influencer candidates are, and get them involved!
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Ad Performance
It’s vitally important that you’re tracking your ads on Instagram. After all, what’s the point in putting in the time and effort to create them, if you have no idea how well they’re performing? Whether you’re making your Instagram ads from scratch, converting stories into ads, or promoting individual posts, this metric will help you see just how well they’re hitting – or failing to hit – the mark you’re after.
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Click-Throughs and Conversions
It’s simple enough to measure click-throughs. Conversions, on the other hand, pose a bit more of a challenge. At the end of the day, Instagram is only one point of access for your followers and ticket buyers, and while they might hear about your event on this portal, they may well be loyal to another when it comes to actually buying their tickets.
If you want to measure how many followers you’re converting into ticket buyers, the best way is probably to use Instagram Insights to track those who have clicked from your post or bio to a ticket sales portal. Alternatively, Google Analytics will be able to tell you how many visitors to your ticket site came via Instagram, which will give you a clear idea of that kind of engagement.
Choosing the Right Metrics to Track
At the end of the day, the metrics you choose to track will depend on what it is you’re trying to analyse and understand. Keep in mind the following points in order to get the results you need.
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Measuring Interest
If your main aim is to measure the level of interest your followers have in your event, then you’re best off tracking the traffic driven to your events page. This will show you quite clearly how tempted your followers are in engaging further with your event and how many are being converted into ticket buyers.
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Measuring Brand Engagement
One of the main reasons you’re on a platform like Instagram in the first place is to get people excited about your brand and event, and to spread the word to those who are likely to respond. If your main aim is measuring brand engagement, and seeing how many likes, comments, shares etc your posts are getting, then you need to be tracking metrics which show Engagement on Instagram Stories and Posts.
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Measuring ROI
You want your Instagram efforts to pay off, and all that time spent on the portal to translate to real ticket sales that will boost the profits of your event. In order to ascertain how well your Instagram posts are doing, and how good your ROI really is, you’ll have to follow metrics which show you how good your Instagram ads are at converting followers and lurkers alike into ticket buyers.
Third Party Instagram Analytics Softwares
Deep Social
Highly detailed and versatile, this third party analytics service is proving to be very popular for those in the events industry. They offer:
- Detailed demographic details
- The ability to track audience engagement
- Ad performance statistics
- And much more besides…
With connections to over 37 million Instagram influencer pages, and no less than a billion Instagram accounts, it’s a deep and concise service which is attracting plenty of interest.
Iconosquare
Iconosquare is probably the leading third party Instagram analytics software on the market right now, and it isn’t difficult to see why. When it comes to thorough analytics and metrics, few other services come close.
With a range of different packages to suit every budget and requirement, Iconosquare will get to the very heart of your followers and their engagement, and give you accurate real time analysis of how well your ads and posts are doing on the platform.
INK361
Concise, user-friendly, and beautifully designed, INK361 is a highly popular analytics tool which is quickly becoming one of the major players in the industry.
This analytics suite will easily show you your followers’ demographics, and will track the growth of your follower numbers in relation to post engagement. What’s more, it also allows you to track your competitors, too.
Measuring Instagram Activity: A Key to Marketing Success
There’s no doubt about the fact that by harnessing the data compiled every second on Instagram, you too gain gain a deep and effective insight into your brand’s performance online. Never before has this been more important: as consumers and the general public are changing their way of experiencing brands, we too must stay ahead of the curve in order to make the greatest impact.
At Ultimate Experience, we put in a huge amount of effort when it comes to staying on top of the latest trends in events marketing… that’s just one of the reasons why we’re considered among the best in the industry. Want to find out more about what we do? Get in touch today!