Sometimes it feels like an instant. Other times like an eternity. The moment between posting your latest photo of freshly baked cookies and the first ping that someone liked it. You could keep haphazardly chasing your next highly clicked post—or you could harness the power of data to grow your brand.
Data Can Help You Better Understand Your Audience
Say you notice more likes whenever you post a slice of pizza. But aside from the gooey cheese and crispy pepperoni, you want a better idea of why pizza garners attention. Thankfully, that doesn’t have to remain a total mystery. Many tools exist to measure the performance of your content after you hit publish. And the most basic metrics are pretty easily accessible no matter the size of your platform.
You can track data on things like the demographics of your audience and what content they most engage with. Analyzing this sort of information can help you understand what generally performs well and what doesn’t. Keep in mind, this shouldn’t exclusively dictate what you post. (I won’t eat and post cookies or pizza every day just because they are popular!) Instead, think about this data analysis as a way to build on your past success. It’s about identifying trends so that you can better tailor your content, focus your creative energy, and grow your brand.
The Free Tools I Use To Track Performance Metrics
On Instagram, I check my Insights to see how many users clicked, commented, and viewed my posts, among other performance measures. I can also see the gender, age range, and top locations of my followers. Insights is available on the mobile app with a business account. This type of account is free to start and does not require a linked Facebook profile.
But it’s not as simple as seeing how many likes a post received. What about comments that show audience engagement? Or impressions that could have led to website clicks? Or figuring out which hashtags or locations made some posts more popular than others? Instagram Insights isn’t great at showing long-term trends, so I periodically check free websites like Social Blade to see my trajectory of followers and media posting. For more serious social media users, many sites exist that will track your metrics in a more comprehensive way for a monthly fee.
On my website, I use WordPress Stats and Google’s Site Kit. The former I’ve used since 2019, and I like that it shows how many clicks each article gets and how readers reach the site. This helps me consider: should I publish more first-person essays or news-style interviews? What platforms should I use to promote links to my website? Is a paid Instagram promotion worth it?
I began using Google Site Kit in mid-2020. What I like most: it shows search terms for reaching my website. (Terms like “Instagram food culture,” “food trends,” “cassava flour,” and “China Town Carryout.”) However, the Google suite doesn’t totally comply with European Union privacy regulations, so I may look for other analytic tools.
Be Wary Of Flashy Fake Followers
A word of caution before you dive into tracking data. Firstly, remember that metrics can be manipulated, and many accounts take blatant shortcuts to boost their numbers. These accounts may buy followers via third-party services, use follow-to-unfollow strategies, or even pay for automation bots to generate comments and likes. Second, even the popular engagement pod strategy—groups designed to like and comment on each other’s posts—can flag you for artificially inflating engagement. A follower loop shrouded as a high-value giveaway is another questionable practice. (Think about accounts that promise you can win $1000 if you follow them, like their post, tag a friend, and follow 10 other accounts. In actuality, all the accounts involved paid to be sponsors as a means to quickly get followers.)
What are some tell-tale signs that an account is heavily relying on shortcuts? Low engagement rates, such as an account with 50,000 followers and only two comments per post. Poor quality comments—dozens of “yum,” “cool!” and single smiley emojis on each post—that are left by the same carousel of followers. Or unexplained spikes and dips in followers, suggesting that someone recently bought followers or that a network of automated bots supporting them was removed.
The prevalence of falsely inflated engagement undermines likes and followers as the primary way to measure brand value. These techniques are also not a sustainable way to grow your brand—you’re not developing genuine interest in your content. And even if these techniques don’t totally violate social networks’ Terms of Service, they tend to be somewhat unethical practices and risk exposing your private information if you’re paying for a boost from a shady company.
Genuine Account Growth Often Takes Time And Effort
For most accounts, it will usually take time to organically grow a loyal following. What does that often look like? Posting high-quality content on a consistent basis. Having a clear brand identity to keep followers coming back and to attract new ones. And engaging with your audience. Many of the most successful accounts run polls, ask questions, post frequent stories, respond to messages, host live virtual events, and more.
By the numbers, I was able to significantly grow my brand in 2020. I’ve increased my website hits more than fivefold from when I launched in 2019. A lot of that was because I shared some great new content this year. But it also reflected my greater attention to SEO, publicizing my brand on multiple social media platforms, and doing more outreach to fellow content creators. (Plus my mom sometimes emails my articles to everyone she knows. That helps, too. Hi, Mom!) I’ve also gained several hundred new Instagram followers in the past year. Again, doing more to share my content and engage with fellow creators probably played a huge role.
All that being said, I’d urge you to not to let numbers alone define your success. Understand that data is only one element to grow your brand. The tools that I have discussed measure performance in terms of hits and likes. They cannot give an accurate picture of content quality. They cannot say what is unique and special about your work. The magic formula is how to create content that is both widely seen and has impact—and it’s much harder to pin down. Though I hope it involves those warm cookies from my oven.
Thank you for such an informative piece (as all of your content is). This one in particular is an excellent start for newbies which can get lost in the vast ocean of IG.
Thanks for leaving this comment! I’m glad this article could be useful. These tools are not always the most intuitive.