5 Metrics to Consider Now that Instagram is Hiding “Likes”

I mean, this is probably a no-brainer, but you should always be keeping an eye on your follower count to make sure you can see the patterns your account is forming. For example, do you gain a lot more followers when you post a certain type of content, or have you historically lost followers for posting another type of content? This is all-important in understanding what your current audience enjoys. It can also give you insights into what type of content attracts your target audience, so by looking deeper than just the numbers, you can actually learn a lot about what tactics you should be using on your account.

You can do this in a lot of different ways, but our Flick Assistant app does have a feature that allows you to see the followers you’ve gained and lost week after week. Check it out and do some deep diving, as it’ll help you re-strategize your Instagram plan for the future.

Another important Instagram metric to consider is how many people your post is actually reaching, and what this number looks like in comparison to the number of followers you actually have. Your post reach can give an accurate picture of the percentage of your audience that is actually seeing your posts.

If your post-reach-to-follower ratio is low, you should consider re-strategizing when it comes to your account by implementing a few tips and tricks to make that number look a little healthier.

One thing you can do is take a look at your hashtag strategy. Hashtags are a quick and easy way to increase your reach over time, as well as gain a boost to your follower count – a win-win. Picking the right hashtags can increase your visibility by a 15-40 percent difference, in turn increasing your ‘reach’. For example, if you utilize hashtags that are relevant specifically to the content you are posting, your post is more likely to be shown to more people, making it more likely to be engaged with and then shown to even more people. If you want to learn a little more about hashtag strategy, take a look at this blog post.

Another way to increase your reach is by reminding your followers when you’ve posted. It could be that you content just isn’t showing up in their feeds if they haven’t engaged with your account for a little while, so by posting a story when you’ve uploaded some new content, you can direct your current followers to your page.

A final way that can help you increase your reach, is by naturally engaging with, and interacting with other pages that are similar to yours, or within your niche. This can help to up your own engagement, which will in turn increase your reach when you are posting.

Of course, calculating engagement has traditionally taken ‘like’ count into consideration, but this may change a little with the, well, lack of like count. Whilst you can still see your own like count, it’s important to take into consideration your views and comments too. Likes can be bought easily without people sussing it out, but fake comments are a little easier to debunk, so authentic accounts will be determined based on the authenticity of their engagement. Also, video views are important, as they are an outward display of the reach you achieve on your account. Views are a clear way to show the amount of people who have ‘consumed’ your content on Instagram and will help you determine what works and what doesn’t.

As an avid Instagrammer, you probably save a lot of content you like on your own account – whether it be for fashion inspiration, beauty looks to try out or new recipes. Saves are a great Instagram metric to measure what content has worked well, and what content is deemed ‘saveable’ by your followers. This type of content is long-lasting, as it lives within people’s saved lists for as long as they want that inspiration you provided. By checking out what has been saved, and what hasn’t you can get a better idea of what you should be posting, that might provide value to your audience.

As mentioned before, you can also measure how well content is doing based on your hashtag performance. If you ‘rank’ in a specific hashtag, this means it is amongst the most popular posts within that hashtag and is thus likely to be shown to more people. So, by monitoring hashtags you can jump on the bandwagon when certain trends pop up, or, just check in on how your branded hashtags are performing. You can also view the impressions you receive on a post by segmentation, so you can see how many impressions you are getting via hashtags specifically. This gives you a deeper look into what hashtags are helping you reach a more engaged and interested audience and which hashtags don’t work so well for your account.

Branded hashtags are also great if you are a business because they can offer you a plethora of user-generated content that you can repurpose on your own channels if you use them the right way in your campaigns.