Instagram Insights – what are they?

Instagram Insights, if you’re not familiar with this term, are basically data and metrics informing about how your Instagram profile is performing.

As we can read on the official Instagram website:

You can use Instagram insights to learn more about overall trends across your followers and your content’s performance with your audience. (…) Insights are free and available only for business or creator accounts. You can view insights from your profile in the Instagram App. 

As you can see, accessing Instagram Insights is possible only from the mobile app.

However, there are now ways to see all those data from a desktop device. Even though actually, you’ll no longer be accessing Instagram Insights, you’ll be able to see the exact same data (or in some cases even some more data).

How to access Instagram Insights from a desktop device

In order to have the possibility to see data about your Instagram performance from a desktop device, you first need to connect your Instagram Business Profile (or Creator Profile) to a Facebook Page. 

Once you do this, just go to the Creator Studio, choose Instagram at the top of the page and then Insights tab from the menu on the left. 

If you’re wondering what Creator Studio is, it’s a native platform within Facebook, from which you can publish content, manage it and analyze its performance.

How to access Instagram Insights from a desktop

You’ll see all the same data that you see on the mobile app. The only difference is that the data will be presented in a slightly different view. You can also select a time period for which you want to see your insights, e.g. this month, last 28 days, lat 7 days etc.

Here’s an example: 

Instagram data presented in the Creator Studio

Even though the desktop version may make it easier and more convenient to view and analyze your data, for many marketers and professionals, it’s still not a perfect way of understanding their performance. 

The latest Meta product, called Business Suite, also makes it possible to analyze your Instagram data from a desktop device. However, it’s not available yet to all Facebook users, so you have to wait for your turn. Another drawback is that, as it’s a new platform, it may contain some bugs and not all the features may be already accessible.

Analyzing Instagram data on a desktop in a more convenient way

We totally understand if you prefer to analyze your Instagram metrics on a desktop rather than on a limited mobile screen. It’s completely understandable also if you feel that what Instagram Insights has to offer is not enough for you. 

Apart from using Creator Studio, you can also take advantage of external social media analytical apps that are available on the market. One of them, which you may or may not have heard of, is Sotrender. 

Sotrender helps to analyze Instagram performance in a longer time period, understand audience interests and behaviors better, but also generate comprehensive reports. 

Analyzing Instagram insights on a desktop in Sotrender

Another key difference, and advantage of using Sotrender, is that within one tool you get both insights about your organic, and paid, performance, meaning also about your ads. In Instagram Insights on your mobile device, you will see some metrics about your ads performance, however, they are mixed with organic results. You’ll definitely lack some crucial information about your ads specifically.

Analyzing paid Instagram Insights in Sotrender

In Sotrender you will see plenty of ads-related metrics like reach, impressions, CPM, CPC, audience share, sentiment, and many more.

Sotrender offers a 14-day free trial so you can easily test it anytime to see if it fits your needs and offers the data that you are actually looking for. 

Instagram Insights, Facebook platforms, or an external app?

There is no good answer whether you should use free Instagram Insights on your mobile device, Creator Studio on your desktop or an external app. Using all of these platforms will provide you with a lot of valuable metrics. However one should be aware of some limitations that these platforms have. It’s your decision which one you’d go for. 🙂 

Usually, once becoming more professional, the need of having more in-depth data is also increasing. It’s natural to start with Instagram Insights – and for a beginner that would be a lot of information to process already! However, as time passes by, we’re pretty sure that your needs will evolve, and eventually, you will go for some paid solutions. 🙂