It seemed unthinkable ten years ago but Instagram has become a make-or-break hurdle for most businesses. Whether a brand’s goal is to boost engagement or jumpstart sales using the new Shop feature, it is now vital that digital marketers have their fingers on the pulse of performance on Instagram.
Getting a grip on Instagram analytics, however, can be difficult. Thanks to the platform’s recent API changes and an overall leap in popularity, it can feel almost impossible to find tools that work in the long-term. To help navigate the wilds of this hugely successful platform, here are the top five Instagram analytics tools to try this year.
Sprout Social
As a social media managing tool, Sprout is invaluable. The service offers Instagram scheduling and publishing features, and gives marketers the power to manage engagement via monitoring in real-time.
Whether a marketing team is trying to measure follower growth or keep an eye on hashtag trends, Sprout makes it possible to track key information across different brands, locations and products simultaneously.
Bitly
Though often overlooked, a brand’s Instagram bio is a key asset in its overall social media presence. As such, tracking click-throughs on bio links is an essential component of monitoring the success of a social media campaign.
Bitly is an almost ubiquitous link-tracking tool able to provide in-depth performance reports of various campaigns. At the same time, Bitly can be used to track the performance of links attached to paid Instagram campaigns.
Keyhole
Keyhole is an excellent service for tracking and analyzing data in real-time. The tool offers users real-time hashtag tracking for Instagram, ideal for managing social media competitions or a range of campaigns involving the use of hashtags.
In addition to showing how many times a hashtag has been used on the Instagram platform, Keyhole also displays data around the most engaging posts containing a hashtag, or with a related hashtag.
For social media managers who have long relied on a collection of tired and overused hashtags, Keyhole is an excellent means of getting some fresh ideas and overhauling engagement strategies.
TapInfluence
TapInfluence is designed to identify appropriate social media influencers for any branded influencer marketing campaign, drawing on a database of more than 50,000 influencers. Brands can search by industry, or a range of other specific data points, to find what they’re looking for.
Once a search has been conducted, the TapInfluencer platform provides a snapshot of available influencers, as well as their rates and cost per engagement. This service is what makes TapInfluencer an invaluable tool for brands looking to break into influencer marketing and determined to vet potential partners appropriately.
Instagram Insights
Last but certainly not least, reports provided by the Instagram platform are incredibly useful to digital marketers. With data covering impressions, reach, top posts and overall engagement, Instagram reports give users the tools to break down performance over months and even years to measure the success of marketing efforts over time.
Instagram is an ever-evolving beast, but even this platform can be tamed with the right analytical tools.
