How many times have you seen Instagram insights for your Stories and come across the term “Navigation”? The Navigation tab is the metric that helps to understand how viewers are responding to your Instagram Stories.
Instagram Stories have become one of the most used features on Instagram, with 500 million people using Launched over 5 years ago, Stories have become a popular way for people to express themselves on Instagram, as well as a key channel for brands, assuming that 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day.
With such hustle around Instagram Stories, it has become important to understand how well are your Instagram Stories received. With Instagram Insights, you can learn how many users view, forward, or reply to your stories. You may also learn which Stories are bringing more attention and visits to your Instagram account.
In this article, we will look at how to understand Instagram Insights for your Instagram Stories, focusing on the Navigation tab.
What Does Navigation in Instagram Stories Mean and How to Understand It?
The navigation tab is a peculiar feature as it can get slightly confusing when you are trying to interpret its insights. Partly ambiguous, partly intelligent, the navigation tab is the perfect way to know if your story is perceived. You get some understanding of people who are exiting your story or watching it again with their interaction numbers.
Now, let’s take a closer look at the Navigation tab, how you can use it, and why navigation stats matter. It involves 4 important metrics: Back Taps, Forward Taps, Next Story Swipes, and Exit Story Taps.
Back Taps
Back is the number of times a viewer has tapped on the left side of the screen to rewatch the previous story.
Back is a good sign as it indicates that a lot of people have decided to re-watch an Instagram story as it has created an impact. They may want to re-watch the story for its content or to participate, or just have a look again. If you have many stories and user back taps, each back tap would take them to your previous story.
Forward Taps
Forward is the number of times a viewer has tapped on the right side of the screen to move to the next story.
Before we discuss what these numbers tell you, it’s important to know that the forward tap is the general way how viewers browse Instagram Stories. Many viewers are forward tapping to swiftly move forward through all of their Stories.
Hence, if you go through the Navigation metrics of multiple stories, you would find the highest numbers for the Forward tap. Although a high number of Forward taps are normal, it definitely indicates that your story wasn’t interesting for the viewer to wait for it to finish.
For Stories with a similar number of viewers, you can compare the number of Forward taps to know which stories were more captivating. The lesser the number of Forward taps, the more interesting your Instagram Story is.
Next Story Swipes
The Next story is when a user slides your Instagram story to stop watching your stories and move to the next user. If you add many Instagram Stories, then this metric can help you know at which stories your maximum users drop off.
Analyze the Next Story metric for all your Stories and look for the Stories with maximum Next Story numbers. This will signify your losing stories where maximum people decide to move to the next user and hence, stories that you need to avoid. It can also help you learn the number of Instagram Stories that you should add at any given point.
Exit Story Taps
An Exit means that the user has stopped watching Instagram Stories at this point. This may or may not be related to your Story and is not necessarily an indicator of your content performance. Users may exit to do some other stuff or check their Instagram feed or swipe up to click on a link.
How to Check Navigation Insights for your Instagram Stories
You’re eligible to check your Instagram Insights only if your Instagram account is a business account and not a personal account. So, the first thing would be to check if your account is business or personal.
Go to your Instagram Settings → Account.
If you see the option as Switch to Personal Account, it means you already have a Business Account. If you don’t, then click on “Switch to Professional Account”.
Now, you can verify your details and connect your Facebook account to switch to a Business account or Creator account.
Once your account is shifted, you can access your Instagram Analytics on your Instagram app.
Now, you can click on the “Eye” icon on any story to check the Navigation metrics. Simply click on the icon, click on the Insights tab on the left and scroll down.
The last section would show the Navigation metrics that you can use to analyze your Instagram Stories.
Navigation metrics can give you much insightful information so you can better understand what’s working and what isn’t. If many viewers skip to the next story, it may be a red flag that your content isn’t capturing the audience’s attention. On the other hand, if many users return to your previous story with Back taps to rewatch it, it may be a sign that your story contains content that other people like and want to see.
Today, people consume various content and they often prefer short-form content, especially when it comes to social media. Stories have become one of the key formats of how we share our content with the rest of the world. To know what resonates with viewers best, it’s important to be able to read and interpret Instagram Stories analytics so you can build a data-informed social media strategy.
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