Beyond Vanity Metrics: Instagram KPIs for Data-Savvy Influencers
Panoply offers raw access to Instagram data. See the results from our May 2019 Instagram Data Challenge
Influencer marketing has grown into a multi-billion dollar industry and continues to rise. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, it’s expected to grow into a $6.5 billion industry in 2019.
Yes, influencing is now a billion-dollar thing. Thanks Kylie Jenner.
An influencer is an “individual who has the power to affect purchase decisions of others because of his/her authority, knowledge, position or relationship with his/her audience,” or an “individual who has a following in a particular niche, which they actively engage with.”
Instagram, the fastest-growing social media platform last year, is driving that growth.
Influencer marketing took a hit recently after the Fyre Fest disaster. The music festival creators paid enormous sums of money to “influencers,” like Hailey Baldwin, who pushed their audiences to purchase tickets to the aspirational event.
While influencer marketing may seem like a fad to some, it’s here to stay. We wanted to get real insights on this new marketing discipline from someone who does it well.
An Original Influencer: Kirsten Alana
Panoply’s Jason Harris sat down with photographer, content creator and, an original Instagram influencer, Kirsten Alana about data-driven influencer marketing.
Alana shared some major takeaways about influencer marketing, Instagram analytics, and what effective influencing online actually looks like.
Kirsten has cultivated over 216,000 followers on Instagram, with high impact content in the luxury and sustainable travel niche.
Influencer Marketing Is Genuine and Tailored
Kirsten knows that it may be easy to reduce influencer marketing just a brand thrusting its information onto a celebrity, who then blindly promotes it to their audience. We’ve all seen poorly executed promotions on Instagram.
However, authentic influencer marketing involves a person responsibly promoting a brand by adapting its key message to their audience in a natural way. For example, influencers commonly promote products by showing their Instagram audience how they use it in their daily life.
Data-Driven Influencer Marketing
A common myth about influencer marketing is that it is less “trackable” than other digital efforts. However, this type of marketing can be analyzed like any other online campaign. The key is knowing which metrics and tools to use.
Alana actually relies on data to help her understand what she’s doing well, what posts perform the best, and other details that give feedback about what her audience likes.
“The thing I’m interested in the most is what works,” Alana says, “so I can do more of that.”
Influencers can gather insights directly through Instagram’s analytics features. Or there are many other options [link to top Instagram tools post] on the market for savvy Instagram-heads who need the numbers. If you’re leveraging a data warehouse like Panoply, Instagram data is readily available in an even more powerful and thorough way.
According to Alana, some of the best insights available for data-driven influencers include:
- Which posts your audience is engaging with (liking, commenting on, sharing) the most
- Which time of day you should post to maximize audience engagement
- Which hashtags drive more traffic to your posts
- What media types are performing the best on your page (single-photo posts, carousels, Boomerangs)
- The most highly-engaged filters on photos
It pays to dig into the data. The more an influencer knows about these details, the more aligned their content becomes. With that alignment comes audience engagement and a loyal follower-base. A large, invested group of followers leads to strong brand partnerships and more revenue for influencers like Alana.
Failure Metrics Are Important, Too
It’s also important to analyze what doesn’t work. For example, if an influencer is posting every week on a Friday night, and not getting any engagement it probably means there are better ways to spend that time or different methods that will drive more engagement. It’s crucial to understand what’s not working so you can focus more on what is.
Serious Influencers Need Advanced Instagram Data
Influencers have to dig a little deeper than what Instagram provides to get the analytics that will help drive engagement. Instagram’s native analytics features can be fairly basic, according to Kirsten, and in her experience, they rarely change.
Serious influencers should consider a more flexible and actionable tool like a data warehouse. Panoply gives deeper Instagram insights with the ability to filter and manipulate data in specific ways.
“When I go to other measurement tools, they have a different set of data that Instagram seems to,” Alana says. “The information is more dialed-in. I want to know not just what country, but what cities and towns people are coming from.”
Panoply creates a more detailed picture of an audience. It can integrate data from Instagram with other data, like email addresses or Google Analytics, to create a fuller picture of who is actually engaging. When data sources can be combined, that’s when revenue-generating insights are found.
The Future of Influencer Marketing
At the end of the day, there are plenty of “numbers” available to Instagram users. In the future, follower counts and likes will hold less power.
The most profitable influencers know how to access and mine their Instagram insights for maximum impact. A data warehouse is one of the only tools that can give that depth of information.
In an industry in which authenticity continues to erode, we’re committed to providing ways to understand and connect with the people behind the followers. Take Panoply for a spin and see what insights you come up with (no coding required).
To watch the full video conversation with Kirsten Alana, click here.
