How to See Story Insights on Instagram

Instagram Stories are a goldmine for connecting directly with your audience, but if you're just posting and ghosting, you're missing half the story. The real value comes from understanding how people actually interact with your content, and that's where Story Insights come in. This guide will walk you through exactly how to find your Story analytics, what each confusing metric actually means, and how you can use that data to create more content your audience adores.

First Things First: You Need a Professional Account

Before you can see any detailed analytics, your Instagram account needs to be set up as a Creator or Business account. If you're still using a Personal account, you won't have access to the Insights features we're about to cover. The good news? Switching is free, easy, and you can switch back at any time.

A professional account unlocks not just analytics, but also features like contact buttons on your profile and the ability to promote posts. In short, if you're using Instagram for your brand, business, or as a creator, you should be on a professional account.

How to Switch to a Professional Account:

1. Go to your Instagram profile and tap the three horizontal lines (the "hamburger" menu) in the top-right corner.
2. Tap Settings and privacy.
3. Scroll down to the "For professionals" section and tap Account type and tools.
4. Tap Switch to professional account and follow the on-screen prompts.
5. You'll be asked to choose between a Creator account (best for public figures, influencers, and artists) or a Business account (best for brands, retailers, and service providers). Choose the one that fits you best!

Once you've made the switch, Instagram will start to collect data on your Stories moving forward. Keep in mind that you won't be able to see insights for any Stories you posted before making the switch.

How to Find Your Instagram Story Insights (Step-by-Step)

There are a couple of ways you can check the performance of your Instagram Stories. You can either look at an individual Story that's currently live or pull up data on your past content to analyze trends over time.

Method 1: Viewing Insights for an Active Story

This is the quickest way to see how a specific slide in your current Story is performing while it's still live (within its 24-hour window).

1. Open your current Story by tapping your profile picture at the top of your feed.
2. When you're viewing your own Story slide, simply swipe up from the bottom of the screen.
3. The first thing you'll see is the "Viewers" list, which shows you who has seen your Story. To the left of that list, tap the small bar graph icon. This opens up the full analytics panel for that particular Story slide.

Method 2: Viewing Insights for Past Stories

To really understand what works, you need to look at performance over time. This method allows you to analyze your past Stories and identify patterns.

1. Go to your profile page and tap the Insights button, located right under your bio.
2. In your Professional Dashboard, look for the "Content You Shared" section. Tap it.
3. Here, you'll see your content broken down by type: Posts, Stories, Reels, etc. Tap Stories.
4. By default, it shows your recent Stories. You can use the drop-down menus at the top to filter what you see. You can filter by:
   • Metric: Sort your past stories by Reach, Impressions, Taps Back, Replies, and more. This is incredibly useful for instantly spotting your top performers.
   • Timeframe: Look at your data from the last 7 days, 14 days, 30 days, all the way up to the last 2 years.

This macro-level view is where you'll find the most valuable information. For example, by filtering to see which Story had the most "Replies" over the last 90 days, you can pinpoint the exact kind of content that makes your audience talk back to you.

Decoding Your Instagram Story Analytics: What Every Metric Means

Alright, you've found the data. Now what does it all mean? Some metrics might seem straightforward, while others can be a bit confusing. Let's break them down into three categories: Discovery, Interaction, and Navigation.

Discovery &, Reach Metrics: Who Saw Your Story?

Accounts Reached

This is arguably your most important top-line number. Reach is the number of unique accounts that saw at least one slide of your Story. If one person watches your entire 5-part Story, they are only counted as one "Account Reached." This metric tells you how wide your content's audience is.

Impressions

Impressions represent the total number of times your Story was viewed. This number will almost always be higher than your Reach. Why? Because it includes multiple views from the same user. If someone re-watches your Story, each view counts as another impression. High impressions relative to reach can suggest that your content was engaging enough for people to watch it more than once.

Interaction Metrics: What Did They Do?

This group of metrics tells you how people engaged with your content beyond just watching it.

Replies

Simple and powerful. This is the number of people who swiped up and sent you a direct message in response to a Story slide. A reply is a very strong engagement signal because it takes more effort than a simple tap.

Profile Visits

This metric shows how many times someone tapped on your username in your Story and visited your profile. A high number of profile visits indicates that your Story made people curious enough to learn more about you or your brand.

Sticker Taps

If you use Location, Hashtag, Mention, or Shopping stickers, this metric records how many times someone tapped on any of them. This is direct feedback on what your audience cares about. For example, if you see a ton of taps on a mention of another creator, a collaboration might be a good idea. If a certain location tag gets a lot of activity, you know a solid chunk of your audience is interested in that area.

Website Taps / Swipes Up

This is the holy grail for driving traffic. Whether you have the "swipe-up" feature or use the newer Link Sticker, this metric counts how many people clicked through to an external URL from your Story. It's a direct indicator of how effective your call-to-action (CTA) is.

Navigation Metrics: How Did They Move Through Your Content?

These metrics are often overlooked, but they tell a vivid story about how engaging your content really is (or isn't).

Taps Forward

This is the number of taps people made to get to the next slide in your Story. A high number could mean two things: either your story is so good people are eager to see what's next, or it's not holding their attention and they're just tapping through quickly. You need to look at this metric in context with others, especially "Exited."

Taps Back

This is a fantastic engagement signal. Taps Back counts the number of taps to see the previous slide in a Story again. This means your content was so good, funny, informative, or interesting that someone wanted to see it a second time. Pay close attention to the slides that get a lot of Taps Back - that's your prime content.

Next Story

Don't confuse this with Taps Forward. "Next Story" represents the number of taps to go to the next account's Story. Essentially, this is a skip. If a slide has a very high "Next Story" rate, it failed to hold the viewer's attention and they decided to move on from your content stream entirely.

Exited

This is the number of times someone left Stories altogether from one of your slides. They didn't go back, and they didn't skip forward to someone else's Story, they just left. This is usually the strongest signal that a particular piece of content missed the mark.

Putting It All Together: Using Story Insights to Grow Your Brand

Data is useless unless you act on it. Now that you understand the metrics, here are a few ways to turn those numbers into better content and a stronger community.

Identify Your Top-Performing Content

Regularly dive into your insights for the last 30 or 90 days. Filter by "Taps Back," "Replies," or "Reach." What kind of content consistently rises to the top? Is it behind-the-scenes videos? Tutorials? Q&,A sessions? Simple text slides asking questions?

Conversely, filter by "Next Story" or "Exited" to identify your worst-performing content. Do you see a pattern? Maybe stories with too much text or grainy videos are causing people to leave. Stop what isn't working and double down on what is.

Optimize Your CTAs

If your goal is to drive traffic, watch your "Website Clicks" like a hawk. Experiment with different types of calls-to-action. Does a subtle, static "Link in Bio" sticker work better, or does an animated, brightly colored GIF pointing to the link get more taps? Test different copy. A/B test asking a question versus giving a direct command. Your insights will tell you which approach works best.

Perfect Your Story Length and Pacing

Look at your navigation metrics across a multi-slide Story. Do you notice a big drop-off after the third slide? Or do most people stick around for all ten? This data helps you find the sweet spot for how many slides you should include in a typical Story sequence. If people consistently exit after slide three, maybe it's time to deliver your message more concisely.

Engage Smarter with Interactive Stickers

Don't just post content, create conversations. Look at which of your interactive stickers (Polls, Quizzes, Q&,A, Sliders) get the most engagement. If your audience loves participating in quizzes but ignores your polls, adjust your strategy accordingly. The data tells you exactly how your audience wants to interact with you.

Final Thoughts

Checking your Instagram Story Insights does more than just show you vanity metrics, it offers a direct line into what your audience thinks, feels, and wants from your brand. By regularly analyzing what's working and what isn't, you can stop guessing and start creating content that builds a loyal and engaged community.

We know that trying to track this kind of data across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and all your other channels can feel like a full-time job. That's a huge part of why we created our analytics dashboard in Postbase. It pulls all of your performance metrics into one clean, easy-to-read dashboard, so you can stop wrestling with different reports and start spotting helpful trends in seconds. This allows you to stay focused on making great content that truly connects with your followers.