Summary
1. What are Social Media Insights and why do they matter?
Social media insights are analytics that show how your content is performing and how your audience is interacting with it. These insights are essential for small businesses because they help you make data-driven decisions to improve your content, increase engagement, and expand your reach more effectively.
With insights, you can see what type of content your audience enjoys, when they're most active, and how they respond to different formats. With rankingCoach, these insights are easy to access and understand, giving you the information you need to refine your strategy and reach more potential customers.
For example, if your holiday-themed posts always drive more engagement, you'll know to create more seasonal content in the future. If your audience often clicks through video content, you may want to incorporate more video into your strategy.
Want to learn how to define your audience and set clear content goals? Check out our step-by-step guide to creating an effective social media strategy.
2. Post performance insights: How to analyze engagement for each post
For each social media post, rankingCoach shows you clear performance metrics in “Engagement” → “Posts” to help you understand how well your content is working. These metrics include:
Likes - Show how many users have appreciated your content. For a small business, a decent post can get anywhere from 5 to 50 likes, depending on the size and engagement of your audience.
Shares - Indicate that someone found your content valuable enough to share with their friends. Just one or two shares can significantly increase your reach. For example, a pet store could post “Top 5 Tips for First-Time Puppy Owners”, which will most likely result in more shares because it's valuable information for that audience.
Comments - An important indicator of engagement. Comments give you insight into how people are interacting with your message. You can also use them as direct feedback. A local bookstore that asks “What’s your favorite read this summer?” below its post might get more responses than a regular post without a question in the caption.
Views - Show how many people have seen your post. For small businesses, 100-500 views per post can indicate solid reach, especially if it's targeted.
Not every post has to go viral. What matters is consistency. By analyzing post insights over time, you can identify patterns: what type of content works best, what day and time your audience is most active, and how your visuals or messaging affect engagement.
Pro tip: The more active you are on social media, the more data you'll generate to help you optimize your strategy. Consistent posting also entertains and informs your audience, keeping your business top of mind. Not sure how to stay consistent? Check out our article: How to schedule posts and create a content calendar with rankingCoach's Social Media Planner
3. Facebook and Instagram Page Insights: Reach, growth and audience data
In addition to individual post metrics, rankingCoach gives you insights into your connected Facebook and Instagram business pages. You'll find it under “Engagement” and then “Insights” in your rankingCoach dashboard. You'll see visual timelines for each of the metrics so you can track your growth and compare performance over time. For example, if you see a spike in followers after a giveaway, you'll know what types of campaigns to repeat in the future to gain more followers. These metrics include:
Reach - How many people have seen your content, divided into organic and paid reach. This helps you evaluate the effectiveness of posts and boosted posts.
Followers and Likes - See how your follower count has changed over time and how many people have liked your Facebook page.
Profile Visits - Track how many people have visited your profile, a strong indicator of interest in your brand.
If your Facebook and Instagram page has more than 100 followers, you'll gain access to even deeper insights about your audience:
Age and Gender - Understand the demographics of your audience. For example, if most of your followers are women between the ages of 25 and 34, you can tailor your content and tone accordingly.
Top cities and countries - Identify where your audience is located. If a large portion of your followers are from a specific city, consider geo-targeted promotions or local hashtags. For example, a hair salon that notices a growing follower base from a nearby city could run a local promotion to attract new customers in that area.
By regularly reviewing your social media insights, you can build a content strategy that is both engaging and effective. rankingCoach makes it easy for small businesses to not only track performance, but also understand what works and why.
If you need help or would like to learn more, please contact our support team - we are here to help!
Any questions about other topics? Explore more articles here: