A thing I simultaneously always want to know and never want to know is who my number one stalker is on social media. Or maybe, like, the top five. Getting a weekly printout seems to be, for now, a bit out of my reach — but at least I have BestBuddies, a web app that will tell you who your biggest Instagram fans are. Yaaas! Also, noooo! I'm conflicted. Help.
BestBuddies is only the most recent addition to a surge of Instagram analytics options, joining the ranks of #BestNine and Iconosquare. According to the hip 11 year olds I taught over the summer (and also to a lot of social media analysts), Instagram is well on its way to being the "cool" social media platform. Facebook is to baby Millennials what MySpace was to us early to mid-20s Millennials. No, I will not use the word "old." Weird, right?
Now, personally, I wasn't sure how helpful this app would actually be, because up until about two weeks ago my Instagram account was private. I have very few followers, and I know, like, 99.9 percent of them personally. My close friends and I like all of each others' photos. It's social media etiquette 101. I'm here for my girls.
Still, I couldn't help but be just a little curious. Also I have no self-control. So I decided to try it out.
The process itself is incredibly painless. You log into your IG account through BestBuddies, and let the app do its thing. Your top 10 is ready within 60 seconds and then you can just, you know, snoop through your biggest fans.
Note: I did not want to put my friends on blast, hence the severe editing. It does not look like this in real life; they do all have names. I promise.
So.... as it turns out, I was surprised. Most of my photos usually get between 20 and 30 likes (I told you, I have maybe 10 followers), and if everyone likes around 30 percent of my photos, they must be liking different ones? Weird. Not how it seems when I'm, like, you know, swimmin' in IG notifications. It feels like the same people (and some not in my top five) like every photo.
Still, it's an interesting experiment. Treating your social media account like it belongs to someone else and running its analytics is trippy, dudes.
Want to give it a shot? Check out BestBuddies here.
Images: Giphy; @witchydotgov/BestBuddies
