Instagram reach is the number of people who have seen your content in the Discover tab, feed, tagged posts, location, or hashtag search. These are unique views. If 100 accounts viewed your post yesterday, your reach is 100 regardless of the number of times they viewed it.
In this video, a SendPulse marketer explains how to boost your social media reach with chatbots.
In this article, you'll learn why Instagram reach matters, how to check it, how it differs from impressions, and how to increase the metric. Stay tuned!
Why is Instagram reach important?
This metric allows marketers to make informed decisions. They can forecast their content exposure and allocate a budget effectively. If you hire copywriters and photographers, you need to know the reach of your previous posts and stories to make sure this strategy is worth the investment.
If you aim to increase brand awareness and recognition, monitoring and increasing your Instagram reach should be your everyday task. It lets you know your followers' level of engagement with your content. Building relationships with customers is essential for a brand's success, so you should know which type of content performs better with your audience and use the corresponding strategies.
Instagram reach is as important metric as impressions. Sometimes, they're confused. So, let's make the difference clear.
Instagram Reach vs Impressions
As a marketer, you need to know how these metrics differ. Take a look below.
Instagram reach enables marketers to find out the number of unique viewers. These are accounts that have seen your post or story. Impressions mean the total number of times the users viewed your content. If the impressions for the same post are higher than the reach, it means some users viewed it multiple times. Analyze this phenomenon as it shows that people prefer this particular content format which makes them engage with it again or share it with their friends.
Working on increasing these metrics will help you boost awareness and brand recognition. Now that you know why tracking Instagram's reach is important, let's learn how to do it.
How to check Instagram reach?
You don't need to calculate anything manually because Instagram automatically counts these metrics. You need to have a Business or Creator account to learn your post reach or impressions. Instagram shares the analytics starting when you switch to a Business or Creator account.
You can monitor the reach of your story, post, and profile.
To view the reach of your story, swipe up on the image of the video and find "Accounts Reached."
To view the reach of your post, swipe up on "Post Insights." Here you'll see the tab "Reach."
Alternatively, you can find this information in Instagram Insights. Click the hamburger menu in the upper right corner and navigate to "Insights." You can view metrics for a selected preset or choose a custom time frame within the last 90 days.
You can track the reach of any post, story, Reels, or video.
Now you might be interested in boosting your content reach on Instagram. We'll share some strategies in the next section.
How to increase Instagram reach?
Follow the seven tips below you improve your exposure on Instagram.
- Choose the best timing. If you want more followers to see your post, you need to know when they will most likely engage. It can include Saturday and Sunday, weekday morning and evening hours while users are on their way to work/home. Or, you can stop playing the guessing game and find this data in Insights. Here you'll discover the days and time of the day when your followers are most active. Now that you know the best posting time, schedule your publications for better performance.
- Share user-generated content. That is the content created by your happy customers, so you can't underestimate its power. People trust other people more than brands. Repost the stories in which your brand got tagged and create posts, including user-generated content. Instagram algorithms prioritize customer relationships with a brand, so your posts and stories, including UGC, might rank higher. Besides, such content is more memorable and trusted.
- Go live. It's an effective track to become visible. If you go live, followers will see you at the front of the Stories feed. this feature also makes you more visible and prominent. Even if users don't watch your live, your brand awareness will increase, and they may want to look through your profile to find out more about your company. Businesses going live gain much more trust since people know the faces standing behind the accounts. Finally, brands often share some behind-the-scenes and answer followers' questions in their Live, so your warm and hot leads will have more chances to convert.
- Incorporate niche hashtags. Hashtags are vitally important in Instagram. They help new users find your brand organically. You can use specialized tools to discover people's hashtags. Look for niche hashtags as they may bring you high exposure. Use general, trending, and industry-specific hashtags in your posts. The more hashtags you use, the more chances you have to increase your organic reach.
- Use geolocation. Tagging the locations of your stories and posts will also help you increase your Instagram reach. Very often, users are interested in specific locations while traveling, for example.
- Engage with your audience via contests and polls. Make use of the features provided by stories. You can run polls and questionnaires and interact with your followers. People like such things as they make them believe their opinion matters. You can run giveaways and contests with branded hashtags from time to time. This way, you'll boost your reach and engagement.
- Work with influencers. Influencer marketing is a proven way to grow your business. Influencers reinforce building your brand identity, help increase awareness and recognition, find new audiences, and get more leads. Besides, they will produce original content for your company that people will trust. Ask them to mention your brand in their stories and posts for users to reach you quickly. As a result, you’ll boost your reach, engagement, and sales.
Congrats, now you know why you should work on improving your Instagram reach and have some effective strategies at hand. Use SendPulse marketing instruments to accelerate sales and maintain long-lasting customer relationships!
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Last Updated: 24.08.2023
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