According to 99firms, nearly 87% of the platform’s users post stories while HubSpot has found that almost 40% of users post a story more than once a week. In fact, if you follow the Instagram marketing trends predicted for the new year, you’ll see that it’s anticipated that even more stories will get created moving forward. And, it’s not just popular for social purposes. About 33% of the most-viewed stories on Instagram are created by brands. This brings us to our next question (the reason why you probably landed on this page) – how do you know if your Instagram Stories are getting any views? In this article, we share the simple steps you need to complete to see who has viewed your story. If the number is lower than you expected, continue reading because we also share some tips for using Instagram Stories to get more views.
Instagram Stories: How to See How Many Views You Had:
How Can I See Who Has Viewed My Instagram Story?
While you can’t see who has viewed your regular photo posts that you share on the social media platform, the good news is that this information is available for the Instagram Story feature. That said, to see which followers and non-followers have viewed your story, you’ll have to work fast. You’ll only be able to get this information up to 48 hours after you’ve posted your story (even if you’ve highlighted the particular story). Here’s how: Step 1: Open the Instagram app. Step 2: Tap on your story. Step 3: Swipe up on your story. The usernames of the people who’ve viewed your story will appear at the bottom. If no one has viewed it yet, it will simply say “No one has seen this yet”. In this case, give it some time and check back a few hours later again. If the number of story views is higher than the number of usernames listed, it simply means that the same user has viewed the story multiple times as the number of replays are included in the story views number. Rest assured, only you’ll be able to see this information. So, if you’re worried by the low numbers (or no viewers at all), no one will be any the wiser about this failed attempt at creating an engaging story. If the story has since expired (in other words, you’ve posted it more than 24 hours ago), you can still get this information but you’ll need to follow slightly different steps. Here’s how: Step 1: Tap on the icon with the three horizontal lines. Step 2: Select Archive. You might need to tap on the title at the top of the screen for the drop-down menu to open so that you can select Stories Archive. Step 3: Click on the story. Swipe up on the screen to view the number of story views.
Using Instagram Story Analytics
Now that you have the information, it’s key that you know how to analyze it so that you can act on it appropriately. If you have an Instagram Business page (which we recommend that you do), you can also get data about how many users pressed next and exited your story. For example, if you’ve noticed that there are users who watched your whole story but you don’t currently follow them, a good place to start is to follow them back.
Monitoring Who Views Your Story
If for some reason you want to restrict who may view your story, there’s an easy workaround. After you’ve recorded a video for your story, you can click on the three dots labeled More at the bottom of the screen. You’ll be redirected to a drop-down menu with a number of options. Click on Story settings. Under Viewing, you’ll be given the option to hide the story and live videos from specific people. Alternatively, it also gives you the option to share it with only close friends that you can select.
Under Story settings, you’ll also find the option to limit who may reply to your story. Here you have three options. You can disable replying altogether, allow your followers to reply to your story via message, or limit this only to followers who you also follow back.
The platform also gives your followers the ability to share videos and photos from your stories in a message. If you want to restrict this ability, you’ll also find this option under these settings.
How to Get More Instagram Story Views
The Instagram Story feature is in some sense almost like reality TV. It’s that sneak peek into the experiences and daily life of users’ favorite social media celebrities and brands that get them excited. To make the most of everything the feature has to offer and the hype around it, here are some hacks and tips that you should also try out.
Wrapping Things Up
If you don’t want to invest in an Instagram scheduling tool that includes access to Instagram Stories analytics, you can still get access to who’s viewed your story. While it’s really simple (it probably doesn’t get any easier), you need to be cognizant of the fact that this valuable data will disappear 48 hours after the story was published. That doesn’t leave you with a lot of time.
Not only will templates help create a cohesive look to improve brand recognition, but it will also actually save you time in the long run. Creating stories is a time-intensive process. They will only be available for 24 hours which means that you’ll need to design stories continuously. With the help of Instagram Stories templates, all you’ll essentially need to do each time is come up with the content. Not only will it help you to schedule your content for the best times, but it will also make it easier for you to post more consistently by planning a week’s stories at once. Consistency is key when creating a memorable brand – not just with regards to timing but also aesthetics (as mentioned earlier). With Later, it’s also easier to plan your stories visually to ensure that your font and color schemes align with your branding. What’s more, Later also lets you view your Instagram Stories views and engagement data much, much later. Instead of having to worry about viewing it within that short time frame of 48 hours, when you use Later, you’ll be able to track this data for up to three months. The reason why it’s a good idea to do this little effort of saving stories is because some stories can make good evergreen content. For instance, if you’re sharing important details in a story, like a competition, you’ll want to share this story more than once. Alternatively, it can simply be a great way to recycle the stories that have performed well in the past.
Also, considering that you’ll probably create multiple stories each week, it can become a logistical nightmare trying to remember when to post what and when what was posted to make sure that you don’t miss that small window period for viewing Instagram Story views. So, all in all, it’s best to leave it to a scheduling tool so that you can make sense of the numbers when you’re not pressed for time. Then, to make sure that your stories are getting views, be sure to get the dimensions right and play around with different elements like GIFs, text, music etc. For this step, we highly recommend that you use templates (something which a scheduler most likely also includes in its package).
