How to See Instagram Analytics for Other Accounts

Wanting to know how another Instagram account is *really* doing isn't just about being nosy - it's smart marketing. Understanding what grabs attention for your competitors, collaborators, or industry leaders gives you a huge advantage in building your own strategy. This guide breaks down exactly how you can see Instagram analytics for other accounts, using both free manual methods and powerful third-party tools to uncover the data you need.

Why Look at Competitor Instagram Analytics?

Before jumping into the "how," it’s helpful to understand the "why." Peeking behind the curtain of another Instagram account’s performance can transform your content strategy from guesswork into a data-backed plan. It's not about copying them, it's about learning from them to make your own content better.

• Benchmark Your Own Performance: Are you wondering if your 2% engagement rate is good or bad? Comparing it to the average in your niche gives you a realistic benchmark. You get a clear picture of what "normal" looks like and where you stand.
• Find Proven Content Inspiration: By identifying a competitor's top-performing posts, you can see exactly which topics, formats (like Reels, Carousels, or memes), and captions resonate with the audience you're trying to reach. This helps you skip the trial-and-error phase and create content that has a higher chance of hitting the mark.
• Decode Their Content Strategy: A quick analysis can reveal patterns you might have missed. How often do they post? What time of day do their posts get the most traction? What's their mix of video versus static images? These insights help you build a more disciplined and effective content calendar.
• Identify Audience and Collaboration Opportunities: Seeing who engages with your competitors helps you understand the broader audience in your niche. You might discover untapped segments or notice frequent commenters who could be brand advocates. It's also an excellent way to spot potential partners or creators for future collaborations.

Manual Sleuthing: How to Gather Insights for Free

You don’t need a fancy budget to start your investigation. With a little bit of time and dedicated effort, you can pull a surprising amount of data directly from Instagram’s public interface. Think of it as old-school detective work - it’s hands-on, but the clues are all there waiting to be found.

Step 1: Calculate Their Engagement Rate

Engagement rate is one of the most honest metrics on Instagram. A huge follower count doesn't mean much if no one is interacting with the content. The engagement rate tells you what percentage of an account's followers are actively liking and commenting on their posts.

Here’s the simple formula to calculate it for any given post:

(Total Likes + Total Comments) / Follower Count * 100 = Engagement Rate %

Your Action Plan:

1. Pick a competitor you want to analyze.
2. Go to their profile and choose 5-10 of their most recent feed posts (avoiding any obvious ads if you can).
3. For each post, plug the numbers into the formula above. Add up all the engagement rates and divide by the number of posts you analyzed to find their average.
4. Now, do the same for your own account. How do you stack up? If they are seeing a 4% engagement rate while you’re at 1.5%, it's a clear signal to look closer at what they're doing differently.

An account with 10,000 followers and 500 likes on a post has a much healthier engagement (5%) than an account with 100,000 followers and 1,000 likes (1%).

Step 2: Pinpoint Their Best-Performing Content

While scrolling a competitor’s feed, pay attention to the numbers. Your goal is to spot the outliers - the posts that dramatically outperform their others. A post that has double the likes or five times the comments of their typical content is a goldmine of information.

What to look for in these high-engagement posts:

• Content Format: Are their biggest wins Reels? Image carousels? Simple graphics with text? User-generated content features? A behind-the-scenes video? The format itself is often a huge part of the success.
• Topic or Theme: What's the post about? Is it a tutorial, a relatable meme, a customer success story, or an opinion piece? Identify the themes that consistently generate the most conversation. For example, if you run a coffee brand and your competitor’s best posts are always tutorials for making latte art, that’s a clear hint at what your shared audience finds valuable.
• Caption and Call-to-Action (CTA): Read their winning captions. Are they long and story-driven or short and punchy? Are they asking questions to drive comments? Are their CTAs direct, like "Click the link in bio!" or more subtle? The way they frame the conversation can make all the difference.

Step 3: Analyze Their Hashtag Strategy

Hashtags are still a primary way for new users to discover content on Instagram. A smart hashtag strategy can significantly amplify reach.

Here’s how to dissect a competitor’s approach:

• Look at the hashtags on their top-performing posts. How many are they using? Instagram allows up to 30, but many successful accounts use far fewer.
• Note the *type* of hashtags. A good strategy often includes a mix of:
  • Broad hashtags: (#socialmediamarketing)
  • Niche hashtags: (#smallbusinessmarketingtips)
  • Branded hashtags: (#YourBrandHere)
• Where do they place them? Tucked at the end of the caption or hidden in the first comment? There’s no single "right" answer, but noting their common practice is informative.

Step 4: Track Their Posting Frequency and Cadence

Consistency is foundational to growth on Instagram. Manually tracking when and how often your competitors post can reveal the backbone of their content calendar.

This method requires patience. For about two weeks, check in on your competitor’s profile once or twice a day and jot down:

• When was their last post published (date and approximate time)?
• What kind of post was it (Reel, Story, feed post)?

A simple note or spreadsheet is all you need. After a week or two, you’ll start to see patterns. Are they posting once a day in the morning? Do they favor a burst of activity on weekends? Do they always post a Reel on Tuesdays? This info helps you make more strategic decisions about your own scheduling.

Level Up with Third-Party Analytics Tools

While manual tracking is free and insightful, it's also time-consuming and can only scratch the surface. If you're serious about competitor analysis, third-party analytics tools are well worth the investment. These platforms automate the data collection process, pulling publicly available data into clean, easy-to-read dashboards that give you far deeper insights much faster.

What These Tools Can Uncover

Instead of you manually building a spreadsheet, these tools do the heavy lifting and present data you couldn't find on your own. Most reputable social media analytics tools offer competitive analysis features that look at:

• Follower Growth Over Time: A graph showing a competitor's follower growth highlights their history. Did they experience a sudden spike in followers last month? That’s likely due to a viral post, a collaboration, or a successful ad campaign. You can then go back to that date on their feed to investigate what happened.
• Automated Engagement Metrics: Instantly see their average engagement rate, average likes, and average comments per post without doing a single calculation. You can often filter this by content type to see if their Reels perform better than their carousels, for instance.
• Best Time to Post Data: While you can manually guess their best posting times, tools analyze hundreds of posts to pinpoint the days of the week and times of the day when their content receives the most engagement. This is powerful intel for scheduling your own content.
• Top Hashtags Analysis: Beyond just listing the hashtags they use, many tools can analyze which ones are contributing the most to their reach and engagement. This helps you find proven hashtags to experiment with.

From Data to Action: Building Your Content Strategy

Gathering data is only half the battle. The real value comes from using those insights to make meaningful improvements to your own Instagram strategy. Here’s a simple framework to turn your research into action.

Step 1: Perform a Quick SWOT Analysis

A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is a classic marketing framework that works perfectly here. Look at your competitor's data through this lens:

• Strengths: What are they doing exceptionally well? (e.g., high-quality video content)
• Weaknesses: Where are they dropping the ball? (e.g., inconsistent posting, low engagement on static posts)
• Opportunities: Based on their weaknesses, what gaps can you fill? (e.g., My competitor never replies to comments - I can build a stronger community by being hyper-engaged.)
• Threats: What are they doing so well that it could impact your growth? (e.g., They dominate a key hashtag in our niche.)

Step 2: Identify 'Content Gaps' and 'Content Wins'

• A Content Gap is a topic or format your audience likely cares about but your competitor isn’t using effectively. For example, if you see their audience asking questions in the comments that go unanswered, that's your cue to create content that answers those very questions.
• A Content Win is a successful strategy you can adapt for your own brand. Adapt, don't copy. If memes are working wonders for them, think about how you can create original memes that are authentic to your brand voice and sense of humor.

Step 3: Refine a Test-and-Measure Plan

Now, use your findings to create small experiments. Don't overhaul your entire strategy overnight. Instead, introduce changes systematically so you can measure their impact.

• Scheduling: "For the next two weeks, I'll test posting at 8 PM, since that’s when my top competitor gets their highest engagement."
• Hashtags: "On my next five posts, I will swap out some of my usual hashtags for the three top-performing niche ones my competitor uses."
• Formats: "My competitor’s carousels perform really well. I’ll create two educational carousels this month and compare their performance to my usual single-image posts."

Final Thoughts

Analyzing another Instagram account’s performance empowers you to be a more strategic and effective creator. By blending manual investigation with the efficiency of modern analytics tools, you can move beyond simple observation and start gathering tangible data to benchmark your success, inspire fresh ideas, and refine your content calendar like a pro.

When tracking our own growth, we know how valuable it is to have clear, straightforward analytics that show what's really connecting with our audience. That’s why we built Postbase with a clean analytics dashboard that highlights all your key metrics in one easy-to-digest view. It lets you monitor your performance across all platforms and easily export reports, giving you more time to focus on creating great content rather than digging through data.