Well it’s been over a year since I wrote a blog about social media analytics so it’s time for an update. I’m going to dive into a few specific things in this one, hopefully it won’t be too number-y and boring.
Instagram Stories
I wrote a blog about IG stories last month but whether you do a quick one or spend lots of time using a template, you should always check to see how they performed. Stories last in IG (and Facebook) for 24 hours so if you remember, go in during that time and just click on it. On the bottom left corner, you will see how many people have viewed it. If you click on that number it will give you some more details including who those people were and if any interactions occurred from the story (profile visits, site clicks, emails or link clicks if you have a link in your story (only an option if you have over 10,000 IG followers).
If you don’t have a chance to look at your numbers while your story is live (or even if you do) you can check on it after under your “insights” option in your account. Story analytics are under the “content” tab. If you scroll down to the stories section and click “see all” you’ll see your stories from the last 2 weeks with their impressions. Once there you can click on a story and swipe up to see the interactions and audience specifics again. You can also do other things like turn your story into a post or save it or even promote it. So many options!
Specific Post Analytics
On Facebook, Instagram and Twitter you can look at specific analytics for all of your posts individually. This can be handy if you want to look at what kind of posts do best for you or perhaps to see if there is a better time for you to post or just sheer curiosity.
On Facebook go to the Insights tab of your page. In the overview section you can scroll down to see your top five posts (click on one to see a detailed breakdown of likes, comments, shares, clicks etc). you can also click on the “posts” option in the left-hand menu to see all your posts. Even at a glance of the bar graphs you can see which ones did best.
On Instagram, go into your feed. Every one of your posts has a “view insights” option on the bottom left corner from there you can see a quick glance of likes, reach, profile visits etc and you can also swipe up to see more: site clicks, people who followed you because of this post, a detailed breakdown of where your impressions come from and more.
As opposed to the overview of your Twitter analytics, you can actually look at your post analytics from the app (so high tech!). In your profile you can click on the bar graph at the bottom right of each post. It will give you impressions, likes, retweets, the number of times people expanded the text to read all of it or even clicked on your image/video/whatever. Basically, if anyone interacted with your tweet in anyway twitter wants to tell you about it.
(This post isn’t really about math but I needed an image so I chose this one for Sara ?)
Again, as I mentioned in the last analytics blog, these numbers only matter if you do something with them. I record analytics for all my accounts every week. Not only do I have them on hand if someone asks for them, but they are a great to look back on to see how something did or how many followers we gained in the last month or whatever. Collecting these numbers also allows me to see if something did well or poorly and even catch comments that I may have missed earlier in the week. You don’t have to do this, it’s just what has worked for me.
Remember compare your numbers to your numbers. See how you grow, don’t look at other accounts and assume you’re failing (or #winning). Its always good to keep any on similar accounts but when it comes to comparing your posts or setting goals your numbers are what you should use. Having that data allows you to compare your weekly numbers while knowing that all your other variables are the same (oops, became a scientist again, hold on!). Do something with these numbers but don’t put too much emphasis on them. Followers and likes are great but not if they aren’t getting you what you need (link clicks, tickets bought etc). Again, its all about goals! ? And once you achieve your goal, your numbers will go up.