How To Use Instagram Reel Insights To Construct Higher Reels
A recent Instagram update contains what brands and creators have been waiting for – Reels Insights.
Since their launch in 2019, reels have become an integral part of the Instagram ecosystem. They are now in the foreground of the app and are easily accessible from the home page, account pages, and explore page.
And Instagram’s efforts to promote reels are paying off. More and more brands and influencers are experimenting with the format. But with the excitement growing (there are currently 169,000 Google searches a month for the term “Instagram Reels”!), Marketers are expected to be eager to measure their performance.
Before the last update, the only way to check reel performance was as follows:
- Go to the Roles tab in your account to see the number of views of each role (shown at the bottom of each thumbnail).
- Open a single reel to see how many likes and comments it has received
And while you can still use these steps for a quick review of a specific role, it is now possible to Measure and track the performance of your larger Reels strategy through Instagram Insights.
Read on to learn more about:
- The definition of role analysis
- Reasons You Should Be Following Reels Analytics
- Useful Reels Metrics
- Navigating Reels Insights in the Instagram app
We also have a list of 4 Tips for Using Reels Insights to Create Better Content.
Bonus: Get a Free Social Media Report Template to present your social media performance to the most important stakeholders simply and effectively.
What is role analysis?
Role analysis is the process of Track, collect and analyze data to understand the performance of your roles.
In-depth analysis can help you make more informed creative decisions and develop more engaging content strategies. On a higher level, this can help you get to know your audience better and spend your time and money on tactics that work for them.
Reels analysis is part of Instagram analysis and should be included in your Instagram reports as well as your larger social media reports.
(If you need help creating your social media report, check out our free template.)
Why is Reels Analysis Tracking important?
As with all social media analytics, tracking the performance of your roles can help you learn from your profits, spot opportunities, and improve your performance over time.
Role analysis can help you understand:
- What your audience likes and dislikes
- When to post your reels for the best reach and engagement
- What calls to action resonate with your audience
- Which AR filters, effects, and songs do it for you
Closely tracking Reels Insights will also help you spot patterns and see if spikes in Reel performance can affect your overall Instagram engagement.
(In case you missed it, some marketers believe that Instagram rewards accounts that actively post reels with higher overall visibility. Our team ran an experiment to see if that’s true.)
Reels Analytics Metrics
To find out if a reel was successful or not, you should look at the following metrics:
Instagram reels reach metrics
- Accounts reached. This metric tells you how many unique Instagram users have seen your reel at least once.
- Plays. This is the number of times your reel has been played. It could be higher than the number of accounts reached as some users will be able to view your reel more than once – which I would assume for this reel with three cows smooching a puppy:
Instagram Reels Engagement Metrics
- Likes. This metric tells you how many users liked your reel.
- Remarks. The number of comments on a single reel.
- Stores. The number of times your reel was bookmarked.
- Shares. The number of times Instagram users shared or sent your reel to another user on their story.
How to view Reels Insights
To access Instagram Insights, go to your account on the mobile app, then tap the Insights Button under your bio:
Note that Statistics are only available for professional accounts. But no worry! You can switch to a Creator or Business account in your settings – it only takes a minute and even brand new accounts with small followers can do it.
Then go to Accounts reached the overview Section:
Reels analysis is now included in the reach breakdown. According to Instagram, this is meant to give Instagram users a better understanding of how reels contribute to an account’s performance.
Source: Instagram
To see insights specific to Reels only, scroll down to roll on the Insights overview screen and tap right arrow next to your number of roles. Here you can see all of your Reels metrics in one place.
To check the performance of a specific role, open the role in your profile, then tap the three-dot icon in the lower right corner of the screen, then tap Insights.
Source: Instagram
How to Use Instagram Reels Analytics to Create Better Reels
Now that you know where to find your Reels analytics and why you should be tracking Reels’ performance, it is time to put all of these results into action.
Here are 4 tips for using Reels Analytics to create better content:
Tip # 1: Test out different role styles
To make good reels, you have to … watch a lot of reels. Without a grasp of the trends, you will struggle to find a style that fits your brand.
But what if what you like doesn’t necessarily resonate with your audience?
The key to finding the best visual styles, filters, effects, and trends for your brand is testing. And now that you have access to Reels Insights, you can get more insights from your tests.
Until now, you could only base your performance assumptions on comments and likes. But having a large number of comments isn’t always good – some of them can be negative. As an example, take the comments from a major grocery chain kitchen hack Reel:
With the two new engagement metrics, you can better see how many people actually liked your content (enough to save for later or share with friends). If you post a reel that gets lots of likes, comments, saves and shares, you know something is working!
Tip # 2: Test out different roll lengths
Instagram currently allows all users to create reels that are 15 and 30 seconds long, with select accounts having access to 1 minute reels.
Similar to testing different trends and effects, you may want to test different roll lengths to see what your audience will respond to best.
Tip # 3: Try different audio options
Instagram offers many different options for adding audio to reels. You can:
- Use the original sound of your video clip
- Add voiceover to your video
- Use a text-to-speech generator
- Use a saved audio track – a song or a viral snippet, like the following example from McDonald’s:
With access to Reels Insights, you can try different options and see if some of them work better than others.
Accessibility tip: Regardless of your choice, be sure to add subtitles to your reels for everyone to enjoy!
Tip # 4: Try different times and days to post
This is a big one. Improved reels analytics can help you determine the best day of the week and time of day to publish your reels for maximum reach and engagement.
The idea is simple: test different posting times and watch your results closely to see which time is best for you and your audience. That way, you’ll never “waste” a great reel by posting it when your audience is not online!
(Check out our post on the best times to post on Instagram to make all of your Instagram content hit the jackpot.)