Do Instagram Stories Work?
Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours. You may think that means too much effort for too short a time online. Not so fast. It may be worth a try – and definitely worth evaluating impact.
With top of the feed placement, links, and interactive stickers, stories can drive awareness, traffic, sales and engagement. There are a few ways to check analytics for Instagram Stories if you have an Instagram Business or Creator account. Without one, you won’t have access to analytics.
View Instagram Story Analytics in Instagram Insights
- From the Instagram app, go to your profile.
- Tap the Insights button above your Story Highlights.
- Scroll down to Content you shared and tap the arrow next to Stories.
You will see all of the stories you’ve posted as far back as 2 years. Tap the dropdown menu in the top left corner of the screen to select the metric you would like to access.
Available Instagram Stories metrics include:
- Back
- Call Button Taps
- Email Button Taps
- Exited
- Follows
- Next Story
- Business Address Taps
- Impressions
- Link Clicks
- Forward
- Profile Visits
- Reach
- Replies
- Shares
- Text Button Taps
- Website Taps
- Story Interactions
Once you select your time period and metric, you can scroll all Stories to see how many interactions each individual Story collected.
You can also tap on any Story and swipe up to view its detailed analytics.
To see the results of a poll or other sticker actions, click the eye icon beside the insights icon (it looks like a bar chart).
Understanding Instagram Story Metrics
Instagram Stories metrics are split into three categories: Discovery, Navigation, Interactions.
Discovery metrics
- Reach: The amount of accounts that saw your story. This figure is an estimate.
- Impressions: The total number of times your story was viewed (including repeat views).
Compare reach and impression numbers to your follower count to gauge how much of your audience is watching your Stories.
Navigation metrics
- Forward Taps: The number of times someone tapped to the next story.
- Back Taps: The number of times someone tapped back to see the previous story.
- Next Story Swipes: The number of times someone swiped to the next story.
- Exit Story Taps: The number of times someone exited your story.
- Navigation: The overall total of Back, Forward, Next Story, and Exited actions taken with your story.
If a lot of viewers exit or skip to the next story, it’s a good sign your content isn’t capturing attention. Back taps, on the other hand, suggest your story shared content or info people wanted to see twice.
Interactions metrics
- Profile Visits: The number of times your profile was viewed by someone who viewed your story.
- Replies: The tally of people who responded to your story.
- Follows: The number of accounts that followed you after viewing your story.
- Shares: The number of times your story was shared.
- Website visits: The number of people who clicked the link in your profile after watching your story.
- Sticker Taps: The number of taps on the location, hashtag, mention or product stickers in your story.
- Calls, Texts, Emails, Get Directions: Tallies the number of people who took one of these actions after viewing your story.
- Product Page Views: The number of views your product pages received via the product tags on your story.
- Product Page Views per Product Tag: The number of views of a product page for each product tag in your story.
- Interactions: The total count of actions people took after viewing your story.
Interaction stats help you measure your success in achieving them. If your goal is to get more followers, compare Profile Visits with Follows. Did you want your story to drive traffic to your website? Website visits will show you how it fared.
Optimize your strategy based on your Instagram Stories analytics
Understanding how your stories are performing over time will help you pinpoint top performing posts. If you spot photos and videos that outshine other stories, look for ways to recreate it.
On the flip side, don’t panic if something flops. Stories are an ideal place to experiment and learn. Fortunately, if an idea doesn’t take off, it disappears in a day!
