5 New Instagram Metrics You Should Watch

Given its large music audience, Instagram is likely a mainstay of any artist's social media toolkit, meaning it's essential to stay abreast of changes and updates to the platform. In this piece we look at five recently added Instagram metrics artists should be keeping an eye on.

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Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0It’s been proven over and over that Instagram has a huge music audience, and if the platform is a part of your social toolkit, then you’ll want to know about a few recent changes. Instagram has incorporated several new metrics, and a number of them are essential to gauging your success on the service, and knowing your audience better. Here are 5 recent metrics worth watching:1. Saves. A user can save your content, regardless of the type, so she can easily return to it later. If you’ve posted content that another user considers interesting enough to come back to it later, you’ve hit a home run. 2. Story Views. Stories have gone from experimental to essential, as users have taken to the more in-depth content. This could be used for announcing or profiling gigs, a new song or album release, or just driving people to your website. Now you can measure the number of views that your Stories get.3. Engagement Rate. This metric tells you just how well your content is being received by your audience. What you’ll do is add up your post views and engagement, then divide that total by the number of total impressions (the number of times all of your posts were viewed). You’ll want to track this over time to better understand how effective your content is.4. Story Exits. It’s one thing for a Story to be viewed, but it’s important to know how frequently they’re being exited as well. This will tell you if your content is boring or isn’t connecting with your audience.5. Story Tap-Backs and Tap-Forwards. A Tap-Back means the user wants to watch the Story again, while a Tap-Forward means they’re on to the next one. Once again, this gives an indication of exactly how engaging your content really is.For a more detailed description of these metrics, go to this great post at Simply Measured.You can read more from Social Media Promotion For Musicians and my other books on the excerpt section of bobbyowsinski.com.