How to Change Insights on Instagram

Staring at your Instagram Insights and wondering how you can just… change them? You’re not alone. While you can't manually edit the numbers Instagram shows you, you absolutely can control which insights you see, how you interpret them, and most importantly, how to improve them over time. This guide breaks down exactly how to customize your insights view and what actions you can take to see the numbers you actually want - like better reach, higher engagement, and consistent follower growth.

Understanding Your Instagram Dashboard: Customizing Your View

First, let’s get one thing straight: Instagram Insights aren't like cells in a spreadsheet that you can simply type new numbers into. They are a direct reflection of how people interact with your content. The only way to "change" them is to change what's causing them - your content strategy, publishing schedule, and engagement habits. However, you can change the way you view this data to get a clearer picture of what's happening. Think of it less like editing a V-Ray document and more like applying filters to understand a story.

Before you can do anything, you need to make sure you have a Professional Account (either Creator or Business). You can't access any meaningful insights with a personal account. If you haven’t already, go to Settings >, Account >, Switch to Professional Account. It’s free and takes seconds.

Changing the Timeframe: Get the Big Picture

The single most powerful way to "change" your insights is by adjusting the date range. Looking at your performance over the last 7 days tells a very different story than looking at the last 90. One shows short-term tactics and daily fluctuations, while the other reveals long-term trends.

Here’s how to do it:

1. On your profile page, tap the Professional Dashboard button underneath your bio.
2. Under the "Your professional dashboard" screen, find the "Account Insights" section and tap See All.
3. At the top of the Insights overview page, you'll see a date range, usually defaulted to "Last 30 Days." Tap this header.
4. A menu will slide up, allowing you to choose from presets like "Last 7 Days," "Last 14 Days," "Last 30 Days," "Previous Month," and "Last 90 Days."

Why this matters: Let’s say you had a viral Reel two weeks ago. If you only look at the last 7 days, you might panic thinking your performance has tanked. But by changing the view to the last 30 days, you get a more balanced perspective of your account's health and can see that the recent dip is just a natural ebb after a major flow. Comparing the "Previous Month" to the "Last 30 Days" is fantastic for measuring goal progress month-over-month.

Filtering Insights for Specific Content Types

Did Reels get you more followers, or did carousels get you more saves? The answers are sitting right inside your insights, you just need to apply the right filters. Vague, big-picture numbers are nice, but the real growth happens when you understand performance on a post-by-post basis.

Here’s how to drill down into specific posts:

1. From the main Insights Overview page, scroll down to "Content You Shared."
2. Tap on the content type you want to analyze (e.g., Posts, Reels, or Stories).
3. On the next screen, you’ll see all your content from the past year. Now for the powerful part - tap the blue text at the top to filter it. You can select the metric and the timeframe.

For example, if you want to find out which posts from the past six months got you the most new business leads, you would:

• Select Posts.
• Tap the filters and change the metric from "Reach" to "Website Taps".
• Change the timeframe to "Last 6 Months."

Now, instead of staring at a random assortment of posts, you have a prioritized list of your best lead-generating content. Study what these top posts have in common - was it the call to action? The topic? The design? This is how you use insights to make smart decisions.

The Change That Matters: Strategies to Improve Your Metrics

Customizing your view is helpful for analysis, but the real reason you're here is to make the numbers go up. This comes down to aligning your actions with the change you want to see. Each key metric is tied to a specific set of strategies.

To Change Your 'Reach', Change Your Content Strategy

Reach is the number of unique accounts that saw your content. To improve it, your content needs to be so good that Instagram's algorithm wants to show it to new people outside of your existing follower base.

• Focus on Shares &, Saves: These two metrics are powerful signals to the algorithm. Ask yourself: is this content useful enough for someone to save for later, or relatable enough for them to share with a friend? Think checklists, quick tutorials, step-by-step guides, and data-backed infographics. A beautiful photo gets a like, a useful carousel gets a save.
• Embrace Reels: There's no escaping it. Instagram continues to prioritize short-form video in its feeds and discovery surfaces. You don't have to dance or point at text bubbles. Try creating simple videos that provide value: a behind-the-scenes look, a quick tip, a customer testimonial, or a sped-up process video. Pair it with trending audio to give it an extra boost.
• Use Niche Hashtags: Don't just target hashtags with millions of posts like #marketing or #business. Your content will get buried. Use a mix of broad (100k-500k posts), niche (10k-50k posts), and hyper-niche (<,10k posts) hashtags. For example, a social media manager for dentists shouldn't just use #dentist. They should also use #dentalmarketing, #dentalpracticemanagement, and even #newdentalpatients.

To Change Your 'Engagement Rate', Change How You Interact

Engagement (likes, comments, saves, shares) isn't just about what people do on your content, it's also about what you do for them. It’s a two-way street. A high engagement rate tells the algorithm that people find your community valuable, making it more likely to show your content to others.

• Write Captions that Start Conversations: Stop treating your captions like a label. Treat them like the start of a discussion. End with an open-ended question that’s easy to answer. Instead of "Here is our new coffee mug," try, "Our new fall-themed mugs just arrived. What’s the first drink you'd make in one?"
• Use Interactive Story Stickers: Instagram Stories are a goldmine for engagement. Use Polls, Quizzes, Question boxes, and Sliders. These stickers give your audience an incredibly easy way to interact with a single tap, and every interaction counts as engagement. Use the Question box to source customer feedback or ideas for your next post.
• Reply to Everything (Quickly!): When someone leaves a thoughtful comment, reply with more than just an emoji. Ask a follow-up question. Tag them and thank them. The more comment threads you have on a post within the first hour of publishing, the better it typically performs. This also applies to DMs. Fast, personal responses build a loyal community that is more likely to engage with you in the future.

To Change Your 'Follower Growth', Change Your Profile &, Audience Quality

Sometimes follower metrics are stagnant or even declining because you're attracting the wrong people or your profile doesn't communicate its value. Fixing this can fundamentally change the demographic data you see in your insights.

• Optimize Your Bio: Your Instagram bio is your elevator pitch. It needs to clearly and quickly answer three questions for a potential follower: Who are you? What do you do/offer? And why should they care? Don't just put "Entrepreneur." Get specific: "Helping Shopify store owners increase sales with paid ads."
• Post with a Purpose: Every piece of content should strengthen the reason someone follows you. If your bio promises daily design tips, then you should deliver daily design tips. Inconsistency confuses potential followers and makes existing ones leave.
• Perform an Audience Audit: If your follower count is high but your engagement is low, you might have a high percentage of ghost followers or bots. These inactive accounts hurt your engagement rate, which suppresses your reach. Periodically going through your follower list and removing clear spam accounts can actually improve your insights. You lose a vanity number but increase the percentage of real, engaged people who see your posts, making your account healthier overall.

Review and Refine: Using Insights to Make Smarter Decisions

To really change your insights for the long term, you need to turn this entire process into a feedback loop. Your insights should directly inform what you create next. Perform a simple content audit every month.

1. Identify Your Winners: Go into your Insights, filter for the past month or quarter, and find your top-performing posts across different metrics (Reach, Saves, Comments, Shares).
2. Find the Common Threads: Look at your top 5-10 posts. What do they have in common? Was it the format (Reels always win?), the topic (educational content outperforms personal stories?), the time of day, or the caption style (do longer captions get more saves?)?
3. Make More of What Works: The patterns you identify are your roadmap. If you see that short video explainers get triple the reach of static images, your path is clear: make more short video explainers. This isn’t about guessing anymore, it’s about making data-driven decisions that will systematically change your insights over time.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, learning how to change your Instagram Insights isn't about finding a hidden button to edit the data. It's about fundamentally shifting how you view and use this information. By learning to customize your view, diagnose what each metric is telling you, and implement strategies that directly influence your weak spots, you can transform your insights from a source of frustration into your most powerful tool for growth.

As you well know, constantly reviewing and refining your strategy can feel overwhelming, especially when jumping between platforms and manually tracking your progress. At Postbase, we designed our analytics dashboard to cut through that chaos. It gives you a clean, clear view of the metrics that matter, not just on Instagram but across all your social media channels. We wanted to make it easy to see what’s working, so you can spend less time guessing and more time creating the content that truly moves the needle. Best of all, with Postbase, you can spot those winning content strategies and immediately schedule more of what works, all from one simple and intuitive calendar.