Can You See Who Views Your Instagram? Interesting Insights

One of the things that one wonders about Instagram is how many persons have viewed our profile. Followers can like and comment on posts, but is there a way to know who was just lurking around? The truth is that it is possible, but probably not through Instagram itself. The app will not provide any stats on who specifically is our most loyal and curious fans. Fortunately, there is a way.

Can You See Who Views Your Instagram Profile?

Either your account is personal, business, public, or private, Instagram does not give insights on who has seen the media. This is the same for Facebook, for instance, which does not allow users to know who has viewed their profile or stories.

Users will get insights into who liked their photos and commented on their posts, obviously. However, there is no info on who was just browsing around. This fact also applies to business accounts. Instagram Business will provide stats on the volume of interaction with a post and the times in which these interactions happened, among other useful data. But there is no information on who exactly contributed to such a volume.

Specifically, Business accounts will show the number of visitors to a profile in the last seven days or how many people saw the content in their feed. Who has been on Instagram, then will not be some information that people will get from the app itself.

Check Out Who Views Your Instagram Story

If a profile is more active with stories than with posts, there’ll be better luck finding out who the most loyal fans are. Whenever someone views a story, Instagram collects their names and places them in a profile of viewers list that can be checked out.

This list of viewers will remain there for 24 hours after the story went live. It provides insight into the specific type of audience checking out the photos, videos, and content. After 24 hours, the list will go away. However, to keep them, the Instagram story can be saved. This list of viewers will be saved along with it.

Check the Number of Views Your Instagram Gets

There is still no way to see who viewed an Instagram profile, but one can still get information about the exact number of individuals and the impressions that posts are getting.

In order to get this done, the Instagram account must be switched to a business account. But the real business is not necessary. The system will only ask to link a Facebook page, but not even that is necessary. Allowing the switch to a business account is the easiest way to see how many impressions posts are getting on Instagram! There are three things that a person will get to see with a business account:

1. Actions

A business account allows viewing what is the activity on an account for a certain time frame. This information includes profile visits and website clicks. This is a pretty good amount of information that allows seeing how many interactions the business account has had during a certain time.

Once again, there is no info on who has seen an Instagram, but it will help get an idea of the number of interactions other accounts have had with the content published. Spread into the days of the week, Instagram will tell which is the busiest day of the week. Not only does it tell how many clicks they’ve been in a day, but it also compares it with the seven days prior.

The Discovery section provides info on how many accounts interacted with the posts published every day of the week. These details are useful as they tell when a greater chance for the media there is to be seen. If Tuesday is the busiest day, then publish more content that day. There is a higher chance that fans will see the content.

2. Content

Content refers to all the posts, stories, titles, and descriptions written on the site. It is possible to see the Instagram content in terms of impressions, interactions, follows, and engagement.

You can set the time frame to be 2 years, 1 year, 6, 3, or 1 month, 30 days, and 7 days. The reason why Instagram lets one see how people have interacted with the content from 2 years ago is to provide information on how the publications have grown during all that time.

If there has been significant growth, whatever it is, Instagram wants to remind the user. The posts are ordered from the most interacted to the least interacted.

3. Demographics

Knowing what an audience is made of is important because it helps to know which demographic group there is a greater connection with. The information obtained from this feature includes age, gender, and geographic location.

You can check out if more girls or more boys visit a profile, what country most of the viewers are from, and their ages.

It might not provide the information about the details of every visitor, but these stats are still pretty cool. Based on this info, there is data about what generation of people interact the most with the updates. Is there a specific audience to be reached? Analyze what type of content they interact the most with. From there, make adjustments to the posts.

One great feature to check about an audience is the times in which they are more active. No details on who is more active when they are needed, but there is this graph showing when they are mostly in the app. With this information, you will know what time of everyday followers are on Instagram. Publish posts during those hours to increase the chances of it getting looked at.

Instagram Business Account Reporting

Instagram provides some powerful insights about the activity on a business account. This information allows businesses to identify the type of audiences they reach in order to improve outreach. Analyzing viewers is a great way to know who interacts with posts and when they do. The downside? A personal account must switch to a professional account, and that will cost money.

The Following Are the Steps to Follow:

1. Open Instagram and go to the profile by tapping on the circle with your photo on the bottom right.
2. Tap on the menu bars on the upper right.
3. When the side panel opens up, click on settings. This is located at the bottom of the side panel. Be careful as it is easy to miss.
4. Next, tap Account.
5. At the very bottom, there’s a “Switch to Professional Account” in hypertext. Tap on it.
6. A series of prompts are presented, including what best describes you – a creator or a business. Follow all these and follow the steps. They might only allow switching to a business account if there is a business email.

It will take some time before the account gets turned into a professional account. Instagram sometimes verifies if the info is accurate, and sometimes it doesn’t. Some claim that their account was changed overnight with no notification and others state that they receive an email confirming the switch. After seven days, there will be data to go and check out on “Insights and Audience”.

There are several apps out there that claim to be able to tell who visits a user’s profile and their posts. Apps such as Reports+ for Instagram and Social Tracking are some of the closest ones to ever get there. But there are some things that need to be considered before using any of these apps.

First, the information they provide is only related to the persons who follow you, and you follow back. This means that they will require a login and password. This gives this third-party application permission to access some datapoints.

Needless to say, privacy rules dictate not to provide such sensitive information to third-party apps, no matter how good they claim to be.

Second, any app that claims to provide information on who actually viewed the content is not to be trusted. If they are able to provide this information, this means that this app is collecting information from its users and use it to generate data. None of these apps is reliable and, if Instagram does not release certain info, a third-party app will not be able to come up with it.

It probably is a downer that there is no way to see all those strangers that are stalking or who is mostly enjoying the content published. However, this type of specific info is not really essential. The data that an Instagram professional account provides is really useful to make adjustments to the type of posts and the time that should be published.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Video Views a Ranking Factor on Instagram?

As of 2023, Instagram has updated its algorithm to better position those aspects that help rank an account. Now, when it comes to performance, the strongest ones will always be those who get the most engagement. Video views are an important interaction on Instagram; therefore, it is one ranking factor. The focus then should now be, regarding videos, to create engaging ones. Especially now that Instagram is testing eliminating “likes” in some countries.

How Do The Views Work on Instagram?

Every time someone watches an Instagram video, the counter adds it up. This counter is placed below every video, and it can be seen by anyone who visits the post. But how are these views counted? In order for a video view to count, a user must watch at least the first three seconds of it. This number of views does not include video loops.

How Do You Get More Views on Instagram Videos?

There are some tips to get more video views. The bottom line here is to create engaging videos that will make people want to share them.

Some Things to Do to Get More Views Can Include:

• Make quality videos with proper editing
• Choose the right hashtags to reach a larger audience
• Post the video at times with greater traffic
• Ask people to interact with the video

What’s a Ghost Follower on Instagram?

A ghost follower on Instagram is an account that does not move at all. They just followed, but they do not interact in any way. No liking, no commenting, messaging, or even posting themselves. Nothing. A ghost follower will not cause any further damage to the account. However, if there are too many of them, and you are a business, it will not help to generate trust.

Wrapping it Up

There is no way to know who has visited posts on Instagram. But this is not really necessary. Furthermore, getting this kind of information would mean that people would know when you are watching their content. It has to go both ways.

Knowing who visited provides no real benefit. In fact, it might even cause some unnecessary stress. Be thankful that this feature still remains as a needed mystery in an era where privacy seems to be fading away.

Matt Robinson

Matt is an experienced technical writer and translator skilled in writing targeted texts for a variety of audiences. He has a diversified background, including social media management of various products. He is a data-driven strategist and a passionate story-teller. He posts about all social innovations and delivers high-quality research and content to our readers.