Social media is a world of endless possibilities. Businesses have been built and broken on their social content and social media followings. We’ve all witnessed people rising from being a run-of-the-mill amateur content creator to an influencer of the highest regard. How do you grow your presence in a strategic and steady way, though?
There’s no shortage of tips and tricks for growing your presence on Instagram and other social platforms, but your strategies will be more effective if you’re using the right tools along the way. One of the most underused yet powerful types of tools is the Instagram follower tracker. Let’s take a closer look at these tools and how you can use them to grow your social media success.
What Is an Instagram Follower Tracker?
An Instagram follower tracker is a specialized tool that gives you valuable insights into your followers.
By default, Instagram gives you very little information about who is following you. They show you how many people are following you and who those people are. And, if your Instagram account is set up as a professional account, they’ll show you the number of new follows and unfollows each week.
But even though you can see your followers’ profiles, you can’t get much information about their online activity. There are valuable lessons to be learned from tracking your followers’ Instagram activity, and that’s what an Instagram follower tracker is designed to do.
With this tool, you can track the Instagram activity of specific Instagram users. Keep in mind that you can track anyone with a public account, not just your existing followers, but tracking your current followers is often the most helpful use for these tools.
Keep in mind that tools that offer these benefits are rare. The most reliable and trusted option is a tool called Snoopreport, which allows you to track up to 100 followers or Instagram accounts at a time. You simply sign up, purchase your monthly plan, and input the accounts you want to track. You’ll then start receiving weekly reports detailing their Instagram activity, including the posts they’ve liked, accounts whose posts they’ve liked, new accounts they’ve followed, and top hashtags and topics that they have interacted with.
What’s the Difference Between an Instagram Follower Tracker and an Instagram Follower Analytics Tracker?
There are many tools out there designed to help with your Instagram content strategy. It’s important to note that there is a difference between Instagram follower trackers and Instagram follower analytics tools.
Instagram follower analytics tools tell you who recently followed you on Instagram and when. This may help to see who your most recent followers are, but beyond those people’s profiles, you don’t get any insights into who they are or what their Instagram activity is.
An Instagram follower tracker, on the other hand, gives you a clear view of select followers’ Instagram activity. This is information you wouldn’t otherwise find on Instagram in one condensed place.
Ways to Use an Instagram Follower Tracker in Your Social Media Strategy
Instagram follower trackers are extraordinarily beneficial…if you know how to use them. There are several ways to put them to use in your social media growth strategy.
Evaluate Trends in Follower Activity
Everyone’s Instagram activity changes over time as their interests and priorities shift. If you can know where your followers’ interests are going, you can get ahead of it and start putting out content that appeals to their shifting appetites.
An Instagram follower tracker can help you watch for those shifts and trends by showing you the continent a follower is interacting with each week. Here’s how to get the details:
- Set up your Snoopreport by signing up for a Snoopreport account, purchasing your chosen plan, and inputting the handles of the Instagram followers you want to track.
- Each week when you receive a report on each follower, look over the posts they liked that week.
- Next, look at the posts they liked in previous weeks to see if they seem to be edging in a different direction. Maybe they’ve started liking more artistic posts or more fitness-related posts, for example.
- Take a look at another piece of the follower’s Snoopreport: the hashtag word cloud. This shows you which hashtags they’ve interacted with the most this week. Compare it to weeks past and see how it has changed.
- Repeat step #5 but with the topic word cloud in your follower’s Snoopreport instead. You’ll be able to see if they’re interacting with posts about certain topics more often than before.
With these trends in mind, you’ll be able to shift your own content in a way that appeals to the shifting interests of your followers.
Identify Top Competitors
Competitor research is a key part of any marketing strategy, but with the limited data that Instagram provides, this can be a challenge for Instagram marketers and influencers. An Instagram follower tracker offers a solution, though. Follow these steps:
- Set up your Snoopreport to track a selection of followers or Instagram users that fall into your target demographic.
- With that same selection of followers or users in mind, go to each of those users’ profiles and check the list of accounts they follow. Look for accounts that many of them follow because those accounts are competing with you for your followers’ interest. Note any influencers or businesses among those accounts, and use this to start building a list of competitors to watch.
- When you receive your Snoopreports each week, take a look at the new accounts that those tracked users have followed.
- Head to the profile for each of these new followed accounts to see which ones are just fellow users and which ones are actually content creators, influencers, or businesses. If you see that several of your followers are starting to follow the same new accounts, that’s a sign that these newly followed accounts are competitors you should add to your “watch list.”
These steps allow you to identify and list your top competitors so you can see what’s making them popular and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Track Your Competitors
Speaking of keeping an eye on your competitors, how exactly do you do this? Sure, you can see what those competitors are posting, but Instagram limits you beyond this.
An Instagram follower tracker, however, can break that barrier and give you powerful insights into your competitors’ strategies. Specifically, you can get a view of their interaction strategy with these steps:
- Set up your Snoopreport to follow the top competitors that you have identified on Instagram – the accounts and influencers who are grabbing your followers’ attention and engagement.
- When you receive a Snoopreport each week on each competitor, take a look at the posts they’ve liked. Are they liking many posts from a few select accounts? Or are they liking posts from a wide range of accounts?
- Look for accounts that your competitors have interacted with most often. Head to those accounts’ profiles and see what types of content they’re posting and how many followers they have. If they have a lot of followers, your competitors are probably liking their posts in order to get their name in front of those many followers, and you may gain followers by doing the same.
Your competitors can inadvertently offer you fantastic tips for how to grow your own following on Instagram, and using the steps above with an Instagram follower tracker can allow you to put them to good use.
Tips and Best Practices for Using an Instagram Follower Tracker in Your Social Media Strategy
An Instagram follower tracker tool can be a great asset to your Instagram growth, but you need to use it wisely. As you put the three strategies above into practice, use these tips to make the most of your efforts:
- Play the long game. You may have noticed that the strategies above largely focus on spotting trends and patterns so you can get ahead of them. You can only do this if you’re watching how your followers’ and competitors’ activity shifts over time. Plan to invest in an Instagram follower tracker for months at a time in order to see those patterns.
- Track your results. The reason you’re using an Instagram follower tracker is to get better results from your Instagram content strategy, so you need to have a plan to see whether it’s working. Create a routine for assessing your Instagram analytics, like your total number of followers, your weekly engagement, and so on. Evaluate this data regularly, such as every month or every quarter. Note that it can take a few months to start seeing results.
- Choose a discreet and trusted Instagram follower tracker. Not all of these tools are created equal. For your Instagram follower tracker to serve you well, it needs to be done in a practical way and a way that allows you to gather data without followers or competitors knowing that you’re tracking them. At the same time, you don’t want a tool that breaches your followers’ trust by giving you access to private information like followers’ DMs. Snoopreport has the balance you need.
These tips can help you make the most of your time and get the strongest results from your Instagram follower tracker.
Using an Instagram Follower Tracker to Grow Your Instagram Success
While Instagram is known for blocking plenty of valuable analytics from view, you don’t have to sit back and hope for the best. An Instagram follower tracker can give your content strategy an edge and help you maximize your growth. Find out for yourself by signing up for Snoopreport today.
