How to Run an Instagram Audit

Before you can analyze any sort of data, you will first need to establish what goals you’re trying to meet. Key Performance Indicators, also known as KPIs, measure a business’s long- term goals. This refers to any sort of achievements or goals that you’d like to hit and frequently are compared to other businesses within the same field. This is done to determine quantifiable performance measures and allows you and your team to gauge how you’re doing over time.

When it comes to using Instagram for your business, you essentially want to ensure this account’s activity aligns with the marketing goals you’ve set. Maybe you’d like to focus on increasing your follower growth, traffic, engagement, etc. You can also very well determine different KPIs for multiple campaigns and figure out which one you’d like to focus on in each Instagram Audit so you can know what you’re looking for.

As social media is very commonly used to bring further awareness of businesses to the public and establish relationships, what’s happening on Instagram should align with your business goals in general.

As previously mentioned, it’s important to ensure that your branding is consistent across all fronts. When creating content for your Instagram profile, you should consider that all colours are cohesive. It’s a good idea to make your Instagram posts an extension of your website or others socials, so that people will be able to recognize it’s you when viewing your content on their feed. This also goes hand in hand with the style of the content you create and the language you use. If you’re a business or brand, it’s best to be consistent with these aspects, even if the content you create changes from videos to pictures to carousels. If your business has a specific branding guideline that it follows, then make sure your Instagram is in line with this.

If, for instance, your company is rather large and you’re across different countries or markets, then you can always have multiple Instagram accounts that are specific to each but are overall still cohesive with your branding image.

Then there’s the quality of your content. Are your videos or images being posted in high-resolution, or do they look blurry? If the quality is not up to par, then it could negatively impact how people view your brand in general. Ideally, for Instagram, you should be looking at images that are 1080 x 1080 pixels. Therefore, if you’re doing any content design work elsewhere, it’s best to keep these dimensions in mind.

This content creator’s account is an excellent example of establishing a tone or colour scheme and being consistent with it. Although she hasn’t necessarily created a grid pattern for her posts, they are all cohesive and look like they belong together because of the colours used. You can also see from her highlighted stories that these are the colours of her branding and are all integrated somehow throughout her posts.

Optimize Your Instagram Bio

When people go to your profile, every part of it should be optimized to your benefit. From the bio to the profile picture to the stories you have highlighted. Your bio allows a maximum of 150 characters, so it’s best to write each word with intent. It will often be the first thing people look at and read on Instagram to understand what your business is about. Therefore, ensure the bio represents who you are and is written in the correct tone to convey whatever message you’d like to present for your company. Next, ensure your profile picture is your brand logo or image. This will help people more easily connect with your account than if the picture is different or if you have no image at all. The dimensions of your profile picture will be 110 x 110 pixels. Therefore, if you’re creating a smaller version of your logo to put here, then this is something to keep in mind.

In the same section where you find your bio, will also be a spot for you to put a clickable link. Whether you’d like it to tie directly to your website or you’d prefer to use a Linktree with all of the links to your other socials, blogs, etc., it is entirely up to you. Sometimes, businesses will change up the link to a specific landing page if they have a current promotion. There is certainly no set guideline for what link you need to put here, just ensure that you’re utilizing this feature to benefit your business. It’s up to you how you choose to set up your profile, as it depends on the goals and objectives you have put in place for your business.

Here is an example of a bio that encompasses everything it needs to about the company. It is short, sweet, and to the point. This account has also utilized the website feature and added in their location so, at first glance, individuals know exactly what this company is about.

Add Instagram Stories to Your Profile

Instagram stories are another way to optimize your profile, and having them highlighted on your profile is an excellent way to tell your brand’s story. This will help individuals better understand who you are and what you do. Stories can also include clickable links, which is another great measurement of how your audience is being redirected. Again, if your objective is to get more exposure for your website or products, then these links could come in handy.

Alternatively, if your goal is to increase your Instagram following, then regularly posting stories that either teach or share ideas or information is a great way to do just that. Regardless of the stories you’d like to share and keep on your profile, it’s important to, once again, make sure that the tone is consistent. For instance, if your brand is based around travelling, having a highlighted section dedicated to “animals” found in different places worldwide might actually be applicable, but not so much if you’re in the dental industry. Although you might be in that field and still love animals, highlighting it to your profile might be confusing and off-brand. Therefore, it’s best to stay consistent regardless of how you’re posting content.

Here are some examples of how highlighted stories elevate a brand’s profile that much more. Whether they are used to tell a story from beginning to end, or are special days, product, etc., that they feel their audience would appreciate looking through, they are impactful. As you can see, these accounts have also created images for each cover so that it looks much more professional than simply having a section of one of the stories highlighted.

Ensure Consistency Across Posts

When thinking about what you should post, it’s best to have a vision in mind of a bigger picture. Rather than looking at a post as a single piece of content, it’s best to look at it from a wider lens. Envision how everything will tie together. For instance, if you have a specific product you’re showcasing and you want to create 6 or 9 posts that all relate back to that product, then you can map out the layout of your profile before posting.

When individuals go to your account, they should be able to see consistent branding, colours and what it is you have to offer as a business. If you were to look at your profile now from an outsider’s perspective, would it be easy to tell what message you’re trying to convey? Are your posts disjointed at all, or do they flow together in unison? Although it’s important to keep a consistent look, it’s also good to keep in mind that your posts should vary. If someone comes to a profile that is purely one product after another and no other content is there to break things up, then this can be quite the deterrent. When going over your Instagram audit, it’s wise to look back at posts individually to establish whether or not they coincide with your branding.

Although consistency across posts doesn’t always mean needing to be as uniform as Cadbury’s profile, this is an excellent example of utilizing their brand colours. Because Cadbury is recognized for their purple design, every post they create fits into this colour scheme, with slight variations of this purple incorporated to add a bit more dimension.

Ask yourself why some pictures or videos might be underperforming while others are doing well? Really take a deep dive into analyzing what might be influencing the numbers. Does a video with relevant music maybe do better? Do pictures with specific tags or captions perform significantly better than others?

Sifting through fake Instagram accounts might sound like a difficult task, but it is actually relatively easy to do if you know what you’re looking for. Having loads of fake accounts following your business might look good numbers-wise but can be harmful to your analytics because a follower count isn’t just about the numbers on your profile. It’s about the real people that will interact with your business, visit your website, product pages, socials and so forth. Therefore, fake Instagram accounts are something you should keep an eye on. Here’s how you can tell if it’s a fake account.

1. They have limited information on their profile and likely do not have a profile picture
2. They have no posts or just very few generic images (no real personality is present)
3. The number of people that they’re following is significantly higher than their follower count
4. The comments that they’re making on your posts seem spammy or irrelevant

Check Your Use of Hashtags

If you’d like to have your content reach more people and increase user engagement, properly using hashtags will prove to do just that. Conducting hashtag research before posting content will allow you to better understand what the search volume is and what is currently trending. It’s best to do this first in order to find relevant tags within your niche that you can work off of. Ensure that when you add hashtags, they actually make sense to the content you’re posting. Often, accounts will add a plethora of hashtags just for the sake of it, and Instagram actually isn’t a huge fan of seeing this.

However, that isn’t to say you can’t still try out different hashtags within your niche. Do so and check the analytics to see if posts with specific tags are better than those without them. It’s all about trial and error and figuring out what works best for you; however, ensure you are taking advantage of hashtags where you can.

Here is an example of how an account took one trending hashtag and made a powerful post about it. Whether you decide to use 20 tags or 2, the way that you create content based around those hashtags will be impactful.