Instagram insights for restaurants: which numbers matter and why

The Instagram insights that matter most for a restaurant are the ones closest to a visit: viewers who don't follow you yet, saves and shares, and profile actions such as website taps, calls and directions. Views and likes are worth a glance, no more. Check the lot once a month, write the numbers down and change one thing at a time.

#Where do you find Instagram insights?

Any public Instagram account gets insights for free, according to Instagram's help centre. In the app you'll see an overview with Views, Interactions, New followers and Content you shared, and you can tap View insights under any individual post or reel. On a computer, go to instagram.com, choose Dashboard from the left-hand menu, then Insights, then Account or Content (Instagram's steps).

A few limits catch people out:

• Account-level insights only go back 90 days, whether you pick a preset or a custom date range.
• Insights on individual posts, reels and stories stay available for up to two years (posts, reels, stories).
• Audience demographics only appear once you've reached or engaged more than 100 accounts in the timeframe, and follower trends need at least 100 followers.
• If you've recently made the account public, older insights may not be there.

That 90-day window is the best argument for a monthly routine. Leave it until March and you'll have no idea how December compared with November.

#What does each Instagram metric mean?

Tap the (i) in the top right of any insights screen and Instagram shows its own definitions, which is worth doing once. The short version is below.

If you've had the account a while, you'll remember impressions and Reel plays. Instagram folded those into a single Views metric: "the number of times your content was played or displayed", covering reels, posts, stories, live videos and ads (About Instagram insights). Meta's developer changelog shows the old impressions and plays metrics were retired across all versions on 21 April 2025. Views counts repeats, so one regular watching your reel three times is three views.

The count of unique accounts used to be called reach, or accounts reached. The help centre now calls it Viewers, though "reach" hasn't vanished: it's still one of the filters in your content library, and it's the name in Instagram's developer documentation.

#Which Instagram numbers matter for a restaurant or pub?

The ones that point to someone local deciding to come in. I'd watch four.

#Viewers who don't follow you yet

Your followers already know you exist. Growth comes from people who don't, and Instagram's ranking explainer by Adam Mosseri says most of what people see in Explore, and the majority of what they see in Reels, comes from accounts they don't follow. For posts and stories, Instagram splits accounts engaged into followers and non-followers, and Viewers comes with demographics including top cities.

Top cities is the one to check. A reel that travels to 5,000 people on the other side of the world does nothing for your Friday night; 600 people within a few miles might.

#Saves and shares

Both sit inside Interactions, alongside likes and comments. They're worth pulling out because Mosseri's explainer lists likes, saves and shares as the most important predictions for Explore, and resharing as one of the most important for Reels. I read a save as "we might go there" and a share as someone pitching your place to their mates, which beats a like by a distance.

#Profile actions: website, calls, directions

Post insights include Profile activity, "the number of actions people take when they visit your profile after engaging with your post" (Instagram). Story insights count profile visits, follows and website clicks. Instagram's developer documentation lists the contact buttons whose taps it counts, including call, email, text, directions and book now (Meta for Developers). These taps are the nearest Instagram gets to someone picking up the phone.

#Bookings

Instagram can't see your till or your booking diary, so you have to join the dots yourself. Add tracking tags to the link in your bio, for example ?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bio, and Google Analytics will show the visits it sent (and the bookings, if your booking confirmation is tracked); Google's URL builder guide explains the parameters. If your booking system asks "How did you hear about us?", keep Instagram on the list. And get staff to ask walk-ins now and then; it's a rough count, but it's the only one that covers people who never book.

#Which numbers look good but tell you little?

Views on their own, likes and your follower count. They're nice to see go up, and none of them tells you whether anyone came in.

Views include repeats and every swipe past. Likes are the cheapest action on the app. Follower count drifts up over years and includes people who moved away, followed you for a competition in 2022 or never visited at all. I'd still note all three in the monthly sheet, just lower down the page.

#How do you run a 20-minute monthly Instagram review?

Do it on the same day each month, in the same spreadsheet. Pick the first Monday (or whenever the week is quietest for you) and work through these.

The sheet can be as simple as one row per month with these columns: views, viewers, interactions, saves, shares, profile activity, website taps, new followers, Instagram bookings, and a notes column for what you posted that month (new menu, Six Nations, a heatwave). After six months you'll start to see your own seasonal pattern, which is far more useful than any benchmark someone else publishes.

One rule: change one thing at a time. If you switch to more reels, post at different times and rewrite your bio all in the same month, you won't know which one did it. If you plan your posts in Venuesmith, that one change can go straight into the next plan, since you can edit any plan before you approve it.

#What should you change when the numbers move?

Match the problem to a fix and test it for a month. These are my rules of thumb.

Few viewers outside your followers? Post more reels, since Reels is where Instagram says the majority of what people see comes from accounts they don't follow. Film them yourself, too. Mosseri's explainer says Instagram makes low-resolution or watermarked reels, and reels that have already been posted on Instagram, less visible. Reposting a TikTok with the logo still on it is a waste of a slot. If guests post about you, our guide to reposting customer photos properly covers doing it with permission and credit.

If plenty of people see your posts but hardly anyone saves or shares them, give them something worth keeping: this month's events, the new menu with prices, the match schedule for the weekend. Better photos help here as well, and our guide to food photography on your phone is a good place to start.

When the profile gets lots of visits but few taps, it's losing people at the last step. Check the bio says where you are and when you're open, the link goes straight to booking, and the call and directions buttons are switched on. Then look at your captions; our guide to Instagram captions that people act on has examples with a clear next step.

Not sure when to post? Once you have 100 followers, insights show the times your followers are most active on Instagram. Use that alongside our guides on the best time to post and how often to post.