How to read your Instagram insights as a musician

By Roadie Media · 25 October 2026

Instagram gives you a lot of numbers. Most artists either never look at them or look at them too much, refreshing likes on a new post every ten minutes. Neither helps.

This guide covers the handful of numbers worth your attention and a simple way to audit your own account in about 20 minutes.

First: you need a professional account

Insights are only available on Creator or Business accounts. Switching is free in your Instagram settings, takes about a minute, and you can switch back. For musicians, a Creator account is usually the better fit.

The numbers that matter

Instagram renames its metrics from time to time, but these are the ideas behind them:

Reach (accounts reached): how many different people saw the post. The clearest sign of how far a post travelled.
Reach from non-followers: how many of those people don't follow you yet. This is how new listeners find you.
Shares: how many times people sent it on. The strongest signal that a post connects with new people.
Saves: how many people kept it to come back to. Shows real interest, not a passing tap.
Follows: how many people followed you from this post. The post that wins followers is the one to make more of.
Likes and comments: quick reactions. Nice to have, but mostly from people who already follow you.

Numbers to stop worrying about

Follower count, day to day. It moves slowly and goes down as well as up. Look at it monthly at most.
Likes on a single post. They're loud, but the least useful number on its own.
Other artists' numbers. You can't see their insights, and their audience isn't yours.

A 20-minute audit of your own account

Open your last 20 to 30 feed posts and reels in your professional dashboard.
Write down reach, shares and follows for each one in a note or spreadsheet, plus its format: reel, carousel or photo.
Work out your usual. Sort each column and take the middle value, the median. This is your baseline. It's fairer than an average, which one big post can skew.
Mark the posts well above your usual for reach, shares or follows. What do they have in common? Format, subject, the first second, the caption?
Compare formats. Take the median reach for your reels, then carousels, then photos. Use at least five posts of a format before you trust its number.
Check your audience. In your follower insights, note your top cities and countries. Useful for planning gigs, ads and release timing.
Write three lines: what to do more of, what to try, and what to stop.

Then use it

An audit is only useful if it changes what you post next. Pick the kind of post that did best against your usual and make one more like it this week. After you post, compare it with your usual again. Over a couple of months, you'll build a clear picture of what your audience wants from you.