Brands on Instagram will now be able to get a better snapshot of the performance of their organic content campaigns after the social media platform rolled out a new update earlier this week that surfaces a host of useful data and metrics in a simple and intuitive dashboard.
Marketers previously had to fire up Instagram’s mobile app to find out stats such as impressions, reach and followers’ demographic breakdowns for Stories, posts and other engaging content. Now, brands can tap into all of these insights through the Instagram Platform API, making it much easier to manage various social accounts within easy-access marketing hubs.
Instagram revealed in an official blog post that the range of enhanced stats will allow brands to optimise their organic content endeavours more effectively than before, when marketers had to largely rely on third-party tools and cumbersome methods to get the insights that they needed.
“The new API is built on the same stack as the Facebook Graph API. Because of this, businesses will need to use Facebook Login to access the new features. Businesses still have the option to use the current Instagram API, though insights will not be surfaced through it,” an Instagram spokesperson said.
Instagram has been testing the new feature with trusted brands in recent months, but it is now opening up the program to all Marketing Partners on Facebook and Instagram. A wider rollout is then expected in the near future. Eligible brands can access the features if they have a business profile, and a Facebook Login is also required.
In addition to the updated metrics, Instagram is also adding new functionality to allow brands to moderate the comments section after publishing content. This means that marketers can configure their software to flag certain keywords in order to automatically hide comments or toggle off comments entirely if there is an abundance of spam.
Instagram has moved to make its community safer this summer after it revealed recently that artificial intelligence will now be employed to root out and block any comments deemed to be offensive. This follows similar measures introduced by Twitter and Facebook to clamp down on abusive content.