What Is An Instagram Audit?
An Instagram audit is a great way to see if you are on track to meeting your business goals. By going through your account and looking at your posts, you can get a good idea of what is working and what isn’t. It gives you the opportunity to see which areas of your Instagram usage need improvement, so you can make changes to stay on track.
An Instagram audit will prevent you from spinning your wheels and putting effort into areas that will yield nothing.
Who Should Carry Out An Instagram Audit?
If you manage an Instagram account for your business, you should carry out regular audits to ensure that you are using it as effectively as possible.
An Instagram audit can be helpful to people like:
- social media managers
- marketing teams
- business owners
- industry experts
- social media teams
An Instagram audit guide can be a real asset for anyone looking to get a hand on their business’s social media presence using Instagram. This guide can help with things like staying on top of posts, tracking progress, and measuring results.
If you’re looking for ways to make your Instagram presence pop, here is a guide for you:
Audit Your IG Branding
Ask yourself, what impression do people get when they land on my Instagram page?
Put yourself in the shoes of a first-time viewer of your page and answer the question.
Does the overall look of your page convey the message you want to pass across? If you want to get the full look of your Instagram page, check it on the web browser and a mobile phone. This helps you see your page from two different perspectives.
Although Instagram is against the use of bots and fake followers, some still manage to get through. An audit of your Instagram followers can help you understand their interests and see if there are any fake accounts following you.
Nobody wants to be followed by a bunch of faceless robots online and it can be really frustrating. You can use a tool like Modash to reveal fake followers that you have. It is better to have 100 real followers than to have 1000 followers and 800 of them being bot accounts. When you have bot followers, people tend to think that you bought followers. Whereas, it is not always the case. So, make it a habit to review your followers.
Your Instagram profile consists of very important features like profile picture, username, bio, link in bio, category, contact options, pronouns etc.
First, make sure your username and name are consistent with your brand. This way, when people search for you on Instagram, they’ll be able to find you easily. If your username is a shortened version of your company name, make sure that all the necessary information is included in the name field.
Check your profile picture, does it still resonate with your brand? If yes, you can leave it, if no, you should change it.
Read your bio. Does it still make sense and resonate with your brand? Does it comprehensively touch on the products you sell or services you offer? Ensure that your bio is as informative as possible, it is one of the important things that sells your brand to potential customers. Remember to add a “call to action” in your bio. What do you want visitors to do when they come across your profile? Make sure you include it.
Add contact options. Some people do not fancy the idea of sending a direct message on Instagram, they prefer placing a call or sending an email. This is why it is important to include a contact number or an email address in the contact section.
Check Your Captions
Quality media will help you grab attention, but don’t forget an amazing caption to go along with it is icing on the cake.
Take another look at the posts that performed the best to see what type of content your audience is most interested in. Also, check to see if the captions are consistent with your brand’s voice. If your current captioning style isn’t working, you might need to consider changing how you write them or revising your brand voice.
Check Your Hashtags
Hashtags are a powerful tool that can help you reach a wider audience on Instagram and grow your brand. This happens when hashtags are used correctly and with relevance to your niche audience.
Keep in mind that it’s all about quality over quantity, so don’t spam your followers with too many hashtags that are irrelevant to your content. Instead, focus on using a few key hashtags that will help you reach your target market.
Check Your Visual
Your highlight covers and colour scheme should give off the same vibe and feel. For example, if your highlight covers are mostly candid shots of you and your friends goofing around, your profile photo shouldn’t be a picture of you in a suit and tie. The same goes for the tone of your posts. If you write mostly serious news articles, don’t post memes on your story. Be consistent in the message you’re trying to send.
Check Content Quality, Relevance And Engagement
Instagram is 100% a visual platform. Most of the time, people go there to “see & watch” not necessarily to “read”. This is why you should check the quality of content on your Instagram page. If your media content is not quality and attention-grabbing, it reduces the chances of people reading your captions.
When you’re looking at your most successful posts, it’s also important to take a close look at your audience demographics. This can help you better understand who your target audience is and what type of content they respond to the most.
By understanding these things, you can create even more successful content that resonates with your audience and helps you achieve your business goals.
You can create amazing content but not see results because you created content that did not resonate with your audience. This is why auditing is important, when you know what works and what doesn’t, you know where to put more energy in your future posts.
Examine Your Instagram Content Mix
Your Instagram content mix should include a variety of topics and formats to keep your audience engaged. Mixing up your content will also help you attract new followers and boost your overall reach.
Are you always selling to your audience? Are you always putting out content which requires them to purchase your products or services?
Or do you mix it up giveaways, entertaining content, informational or educational content?
Instagram has so many different media formats to take advantage of, you can posts videos as reels, you can go live, you can have collaborative posts and live sessions, you can post up to 10 pictures in a feed post, you can do a story layout of u to 6 pictures, you can post carousels etc. On Instagram, you have lots of options, use them to the advantage of your brand or business.
Check Your Engagement
To help you carry out an effective engagement audit, here are some questions you should ask:
- Are you responding to comments?
- Are you responding to DMs?
- Do you keep up with your most-engaged followers?
- Are you following relevant accounts?
- Are you engaging with posts from accounts you follow?
If you’re able to successfully answer these questions, you will know what to do to better the engagement rate on your account.
Consider Your Posting Frequency And Schedule
In your bid to get the most out of the efforts you put into Instagram, it’s important to know when your followers are online and engaged, so you can plan your posting schedule around those times. There are tools which can help you gather this data and even draw a calendar for you, for example, sprout social.
Sprout social will tell you the days and times to post based on your account’s engagement analytics.
Conclusion
Checking in on the status of your Instagram health should be done periodically to ensure the success of your business on the platform. Without reflection, you will continue making the same mistakes and wasting time and money. Take a step back, evaluate what is and isn’t working, and make changes accordingly.
Having an accurate understanding of who your followers are is crucial for understanding your audience and getting useful insights from your data. However, if you don’t clean up your follower list by conducting an Instagram follower audit, you won’t be able to get an accurate picture of who is actually following you.
By following the steps in this guide, you’ll be able to better understand how to utilize your profile to its fullest potential in order to make changes that will help improve your brand and make it more successful.
