A Complete Checklist to Audit Your Instagram Profile

The social media platform’s policies are updated frequently, so sticking to one single strategy throughout your tenure is a mistake.

You might need help with what to do when your growth stops, despite the different types of content you post and hashtags, which means that you need to alter your metrics according to the situation. It’s essential to keep up with the changes and adjust your approach accordingly to stay relevant and practical.

Being adaptable and flexible in your social media strategy is crucial to success. Performing actions on a hit-and-miss basis is not a wise decision, and it will waste your time and disappointment when you cannot achieve your desired results. Perform an Instagram audit first before implementing a new strategy.

Partially going through your Instagram account could reveal things to improve, but conducting a thorough audit will provide a comprehensive analysis of your account’s strengths and weaknesses.

By doing so, you can identify areas for improvement and develop a more effective strategy to achieve your goals on the platform.

This article is a comprehensive Instagram guide that will walk you through each step.

What Is an Instagram Audit? 

An Instagram profile audit is a thorough examination of your account and can help identify areas for improvement in content, engagement, and follower growth.

It can also provide valuable insights into your audience’s demographics and preferences, allowing you to tailor your content to better resonate with them.

By conducting an Instagram audit, you can evaluate your competitors’ strategies and identify opportunities to differentiate yourself in the market. It can ultimately lead to increased brand awareness, engagement, and conversions on the platform.

In addition, an Instagram audit can help you identify areas for improvement in your content strategy and optimize your posting schedule for maximum reach and engagement.

By regularly conducting audits, you can stay up-to-date with changes in the platform’s algorithm and adjust your approach accordingly to maintain a strong presence on Instagram.

It can help you identify any potential issues with your account, such as fake followers or engagement pods, that may negatively impact your reach and credibility. Similarly, using Instagram audits to identify their interests can help you develop strong relationships with loyal followers.

Ensuring that each Instagram feed post, story, and reel you share serves a purpose and furthers the goals is the main objective of the entire process.

How Instagram Audits Can Benefit Your Business?

Instagram has become one of the most popular social media platforms for businesses to promote their products and services.

However, ensuring your Instagram account performs at its best is essential to get the most out of this platform. This is where Instagram audits can be incredibly valuable.

An Instagram audit involves a comprehensive review of your account to identify areas that need improvement and opportunities for growth. Here are some of the ways that an Instagram audit can benefit your business:

Improved Comprehension of Your Target Audience

You’ve done an Instagram audit. Now what?

For example, you’ve found that your audience prefers to watch 1-minute videos and under, and yes, you’ve realized that they’re mainly watching short-form content. But now what?

The first step is understanding who you’re talking to: their wants, needs, and behaviors. Knowing how they watch videos is just as crucial in an Instagram audit. After all, if you don’t know who your target audience is before you start designing a new video campaign, then it’s incredibly likely that the video will fall flat on its face!

With an Instagram audit of your own, you’ll get a better idea of what kind of content your audience responds best to. Once you understand who they are and why they like certain kinds of content or even just certain kinds of posts, you can start crafting new content based on those insights.

Increase the Effectiveness of Your Content

Many factors go into the algorithm when you upload new content to Instagram. One of these factors is how relevant your content is to people’s interests. That’s why it’s essential to keep an eye on what’s working and what isn’t.

An audit is an analysis of your account’s performance, and it can give you a better understanding of how to use your time on the platform best to generate the most exposure for your business.

What does this mean for your business?

To increase your reach on Instagram, you must ensure your content is relevant and engaging enough for users to click through and engage with your account.

It means that even if it’s not directly relevant to their interests if it has a high level of engagement (meaning lots of likes and comments), it might work well enough for them.

Improve Your Business Account Profile

When making a business account profile on Instagram, it’s not enough to create one. Your profile has to be complete and suitable for making a lasting impression on your target audience.

It’s where Instagram audits come in. An Instagram audit allows you to get objective feedback from an expert who will look at your account, give recommendations, and suggest ways to improve it even more.

It can be a valuable tool for any business owner or manager looking to improve their marketing efforts. It’s also vital for all businesses trying to grow organically, as social media represents a critical way of reaching their customers and potential customers.

Refinement of Goals and Strategies

When you first began using Instagram, you probably started with clear objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) that could be used as indicators of progress toward meeting those goals.

But once you realize how much time and energy it takes to stay on top of all the changes occurring on the platform, it might have become clear that these objectives were too broad to be helpful—and that’s where an audit can come in handy.

An audit is a process that helps companies determine the effectiveness of their current strategy by comparing it with other techniques they’ve already put into place.

It is done by looking at how well the company’s goals are being met and then determining what changes are needed if they still need to be.

Audits can be run as part of regular business reviews or in response to a specific need—for example, if there’s been a change in leadership or a new goal has been set for the department audited.

10 Steps to Conduct an Instagram Audit in 2023

• Profile Information

The most valuable Instagram real estate for you is in your profile. Make sure that your profile is concise and reflects your brand’s image. It should effectively communicate who you are and what you offer your followers.

Above all, remember to keep the bio consistent with your other social media accounts. It will help establish a consistent brand identity and make it easier for people to recognize and remember you. Additionally, including a call-to-action or link to your website can encourage followers to take action and engage with your content.

Your bio should also highlight your unique selling proposition and what differentiates you from your competitors. Remember to keep it concise and engaging to capture the attention of potential followers. Additionally, consider using keywords relevant to your industry to make it easier for users to find you through search.

Let’s dig more into the details, starting with your profile picture. Generally, your profile picture should be an image of your current company logo.

Under your username, the name of your page will appear. If you use your brand name as your username, you could use your tagline as the name of your page. Alternatively, you would write it there if you need help getting your brand name as your username. Next, where do you want to direct your followers too?

Decide wisely; it can be a landing page or the homepage of your website. Instagram profile audit is the first step in this journey; therefore, ensure you cover all aspects mentioned above.

• Content Strategy

Engagement with your content, whether through social media, your website, or social advertising, turns fans into legitimate clients. Creating high-quality content that resonates with your target audience is crucial for building brand awareness and establishing trust, ultimately leading to conversions and sales.

Investing time and resources to develop a content strategy that aligns with your business goals is essential. You must formulate effective strategies to deliver the desired message to targeted audiences.

You should publish original content that caters to the unique needs of your target audience. Another critical factor is maintaining a consistent posting schedule, which will help keep your audience engaged and build a loyal following over time.

Additionally, regularly analyzing and adjusting your content strategy based on performance metrics can ensure that you meet your business goals and stay relevant in your industry.

The topics and formats you select are part of your Instagram content mix. Do you educate readers, or do you promote sales?

Having a good balance of educational content and promotional posts can help build trust with your audience and establish your brand as an authority in your industry. It’s also important to vary the format of your posts, including a mix of carousels and videos, to keep your feed visually exciting and engaging.

You can make an impact with attention-grabbing media and an eye catchy caption. By analyzing your top-performing posts, you can also identify patterns in terms of content and format that work well with your audience. It can help you create a more effective social media strategy that aligns with your brand’s voice and values.

And if it doesn’t work, do not panic; alter your brand voice and write the caption again. You can also use the AI Caption generator to generate unique post captions.

• Engagement

This step of the Instagram audit focuses on how your clients engage and interact with their followers to build a community. This step is crucial because, based on it, Instagram will try to show your post to more users by making it appear on the Explore page.

All you need to do is dedicate time to your followers and engage with them so they feel you’re making friends, not clients.

It takes a lot of effort for people to come up to your post and reply; always reply to them back. If someone shares your post or gives you a shout, thank them for liking it.

Remember that engaging with your followers helps build a loyal community supporting your brand in the long run. And remember to follow and engage with brand accounts too.

Social media is about building relationships; genuine engagement can go a long way. Another option for directly interacting with them is taking live sessions for 30 minutes and answering their questions right away, making them feel valued.

The Instagram followers audit is a subprocess of the engagement part. Some signs indicate that an account may be fake or used for spamming. When you come across such suspicious reports, take action right away and block them.

Keeping them for the sake of the numbers on your profile is a blunder because your brand will only benefit from having a small following inflated by fake accounts.

• Analytics

Data-driven decisions are always more successful than ones that are made through experimentation. Similarly, it would be best to see what results in your strategies led to; this is where data analytics comes into play and measures your marketing performance.

When conducting your Instagram audit, paying close attention to that data will help you better understand what works well and where you could improve. By analyzing the data, you can identify which posts get the most engagement and adjust your content strategy accordingly.

Additionally, you can use analytics to track your follower growth and demographics to ensure you’re effectively reaching your target audience. You can access some basic analytics within Instagram if you have a business profile; otherwise, you can use tools like Social Media Analytics.

Analyzing the rate of growth amongst your followers by using analytic tools can help you understand the effectiveness of your social media strategy. If your follower count is not meeting your expectations, it may be time to reevaluate and adjust your approach. 

Similarly, by analyzing your top-performing content, you can identify patterns and themes your audience enjoys and create more of that type of content. It will not only increase engagement but also attract new followers who are interested in the same kind of content. 

Moving on to the low-performing content, once you have identified it, you can analyze the reasons behind its underperformance and use those insights to improve your future content strategy. The exercise can help you save time and resources by creating high-quality content that resonates with your audience. 

• Hashtag Strategy

To expand your audience and attract new users, hashtags are essential. However, it is important to be cautious of the content associated with the hashtag before using it to avoid any negative impact on your brand or reputation.

Monitoring hashtags regularly can also help ensure they align with your brand’s values and messaging. You may use 25–30 hashtags per post, but they must be associated with your brand and content.

Use less well-known hashtags and keywords relevant to your niche rather than the most widely used ones on Instagram. It will increase the chances of your post being seen by the right people, leading to higher engagement rates and potential followers. Remember, quality over quantity when it comes to hashtags.

• Visuals and Aesthetics

Next, you need to audit your overall Instagram visuals and aesthetics. Your profile picture, Instagram stories, highlight covers, and pinned posts are the first things users see when they visit your profile.

Therefore, assuring they accurately represent you and your brand is essential. It must be appealing, and you must make people want to see it rather than scroll down to another profile. One characteristic that unites successful Instagram business accounts is consistency.

This consistency should be maintained across all account aspects, from the content posted to how followers are engaged. Businesses can build a strong brand identity and establish a loyal following on the platform.

Please make sure consistency is distinct from daily posting or type of content. It covers color palettes, your voice when writing captions, the kind of image you share, the hashtags you use, and how you engage with your followers.

• Story Highlights

You have complete control over what topics you want to highlight and which Stories to include with Instagram Stories Highlights.

Utilizing this feature, you can showcase your brand’s values, products, and services in a visually appealing and organized manner that makes it easier for your followers to understand your brand’s identity and encourages them to engage with your content.

They promote interaction by making it simple for your audience to view and engage with the stories they are most interested in. Besides, your stories can also gain views and engagement well past the initial 24-hour limit.

Additionally, it can provide more context and information about your brand, such as behind-the-scenes content or customer testimonials which helps build a stronger connection with your audience and can ultimately lead to increased brand loyalty and sales.

The next step is naming the Highlight, which might need clarification, but we’re here to help. When you give a name to your highlights, keep it short and impactful.

Emojis, acronyms, and sing-a-lone words are standard ways to say more with less in a Highlights title. Another way to convey the subject matter of each Highlight is to use clever cover design.

Covers are an excellent way to draw visitors’ attention, express the content of each Highlight, and bolster your brand identity since they are the static image that users first see inside the circle of a Highlight.

Using creative cover designs for your highlights can make them more visually appealing and help convey the subject matter of each Highlight.

• Influencer Marketing

An “influencer audit” evaluates an influencer’s impact, quality, and effectiveness on a social platform.

By conducting a thorough influencer audit, you can identify the most effective influencers for your brand and optimize your influencer marketing strategy accordingly. It can lead to better ROI and overall success in your marketing efforts. 

Before you start with this step, it’s important to clearly understand what you want to accomplish with the aid of your influencers. By doing this, you will narrow your attention to the details that are most crucial to your influencer marketing strategy.

After finalizing the preceding information, you can contact the shortlisted influencer and start your campaign. If you need help finding the right influencers, you can use ContentStudio. 

ContentStudio will let you explore all content marketing and social media management avenues under one roof. With the addition of the Influencers section, you will have complete command over influencer discovery and outreach and find people as passionate about a topic as you are.

Digging in more, the platform allows businesses to find and collaborate with influencers, create and share content, track campaign performance, and measure ROI.

Using ContentStudio, businesses can streamline influencer marketing and make managing and tracking campaigns easier. The platform provides tools for managing multiple campaigns simultaneously, ensuring that companies can stay organized and efficient.

Advertising Strategy

Instagram audits can help you learn more about your audience, which enables you to plan and execute your advertising strategy.

You might wonder, If I already know my audience well, why should I care about learning more about them?

The reason is that knowing your audience better will help you build a better strategy. It’s like being a good detective: knowing who committed the crime can help you figure out how to catch them.

Instagram audits are an incredibly effective way to do just that: they help you figure out what makes your customers tick and what motivates them along the way. Knowing the type of person who likes your product will help you create ads that appeal to them.

Knowing what elements interest them, like its design or pricing, will help you craft ads that resonate with them. And finally, knowing how much money you can make on average will let you understand where to place different price points in your ad campaign budget.

• Legal Compliance

Instagram has a strict policy that its users must obey. You are not permitted to impersonate anyone or give false information on Instagram.

Additionally, you are not allowed to use a false identity or create an account on behalf of someone else unless you have that person’s express permission. Furthermore, if someone is using your profile details on another account and pretending to be you, report it immediately.

As far as your own identity is concerned, you are supposed to submit accurate and correct personal data. Nothing you do may be unlawful, deceptive, fraudulent, or done for an unauthorized or prohibited purpose. It includes abusing any channel for reporting, disputing, or appealing, like filing false or baseless reports.

Moreover, you cannot collect data from Instagram without their consent. The same goes for the usage of others’ private or confidential information. However, you may use someone else’s work. You warrant that the material you post or share is yours or that all necessary rights have been obtained.

Instagram has provided a detailed guide on prohibited acts to make sure there is no room for confusion.

Top Tips for Conducting an Effective Instagram Audit

Define Your Instagram Goals

You need to identify and look at corporate goals before conducting an Instagram audit. Consider the purpose of your marketing platform. It will help you determine if Instagram is the right platform for your organization or if you need to focus on other social media channels.

If you don’t have a reason to spend time on Instagram, you would be better off using that time elsewhere.

Don’t use your Instagram account as part of your marketing campaigns for your company.

Additionally, by analyzing your entire organization, you can ensure that your social media strategy aligns with your overall business strategy. Examine your goals regularly to stay up-to-date with online trends and current events, and decide which platform best suits your needs.

Check Your Branding, Voice, and Aesthetic

Instagram is primarily a visual platform, so the appearance of your account will likely be one of the first things followers notice when visiting your feed.

Therefore, regularly reviewing your Instagram strategy concerning any photos or videos on your account is a good idea. It is common knowledge that pictures and videos are the most exciting and widely viewed types of content on the Internet.

As a result, you must pay attention to all aspects of your Instagram presence that could improve or strengthen your connections with users. The Instagram accounts that garner the most attention are those with a unified aesthetic that matches the general tone of the brand.

Your pictures should share the same hues, themes, or emotions to maintain a uniform appearance. It would be best to ensure that the images you post are high quality rather than grainy, blurry, or dark.

Review the Content You Share

Make it a weekly practice to thoroughly evaluate every content you’ve posted on your account when performing an Instagram audit. Review the content and make suitable alterations based on the data insights you’ve gained using analytic tools.

You need to post frequently so that your users and followers recognize you as a participant rather than a company that is inactive or has perhaps gone out of business.

However, it’s essential to maintain a balance and post sparingly, as it can overwhelm your audience and decrease engagement. Additionally, utilizing Instagram’s analytics feature can help you understand what content resonates best with your audience and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Assess Your Engagement Levels

The first thing you need to do is assess your engagement levels.

Are they high or low? What are they? Does your Instagram profile look like it’s doing something? If not, then it’s time to make some changes.

Engagement is the number of likes and comments you get on a post. If you’re looking at the number of likes but not the comments, you could be missing out on some great ideas for content.

It’s also essential to track the time spent on each post to determine what works best for your brand and which posts get less attention than others. The more engagement you get, the more likely people want to engage with your brand in other ways. So make sure you’re checking both.

Evaluate Your Hashtag and Keyword Strategy

You’re using hashtags and keywords strategically to help grow your Instagram account. But are you making the most of them?

You need to evaluate the results of your hashtag and keyword strategy before moving forward. Hashtags and keywords can be powerful tools for growing an Instagram account, but they only work when used correctly.

Here’s how to make sure you’re getting the most out of them:

• Think about what you want people to see when they look at an image with a particular hashtag or keyword. Is it the whole picture? Is it just part of the picture? Is it text? What is significant about this picture? It would be best if you thought about what matters when someone sees your post so that you can create content that will resonate with them.
• Think about how you present this content to others who want to see it. Will you use images, video, or text-only posts? It’s all about being authentic with yourself and others—and making sure everyone who visits your profile knows precisely what they’re looking at when they click on something from there!

Optimize Your Instagram Bio

Regarding the Instagram bio, we can’t stress enough the importance of being concise and clear. It means that you’re not wasting space on words that don’t add much value or are just plain unnecessary.

Being transparent means that your bio is easy to understand and doesn’t leave your followers wondering what exactly you do.

The first thing to consider when creating a compelling Instagram bio is length. You want to make sure that it’s short enough, you don’t want it to go over the edge, but neither do you want it to be so quick that your follower gets bored before they even start reading.

Review Your Marketing Tools

Many marketing tools are available on Instagram, but you should only use the ones that help you reach your goals.

For example, if you want to grow your business and increase audience engagement, it might make sense to spend money on paid advertising or other forms of marketing.

On the other hand, if your goal is to have more followers and engage with them through photos, then a free tool like Hootsuite or Buffer might be enough.

You must also consider how much time you will invest in each tool. Some are extremely easy to use, while others require more effort. Ask an expert if you are still determining which will work best for your brand.

Level up Your Analytics Reporting

If you want your Instagram account to grow, you need to know what people are looking for. That’s where analytics comes in.

They’re like a report on how many people have seen your posts, how long they stay on the site, and what kind of content gets them to leave.

You’ve taken some of the tips from this post and implemented them, but now you want to know if there are any other ways you can level up your analytics reporting.

Conclusion 

In this day and age, social media is a potent tool for promoting goods and services. Gone are the days of using newspaper and television ads for advertising purposes.

You must pause and review your Instagram profile if you haven’t done this already. You can set up an Instagram account from scratch or audit your existing Instagram profile. Hence, it is vital to adopt this approach to maintain your social media accounts rather than leave them unattended.

It will keep you accountable for what you share and how you present yourself on social media. Moreover, it also prevents your competitors from misusing your content or images to misrepresent your business.

Remember that your Instagram account is a representation of your business and yourself. Take some time to take a hard look: at your account (including photos, bios, and the link to your website) and make sure you’re presenting the best possible version of yourself, both as a business and as a person.

FAQs

• How do I get an Instagram audit?

You can follow the steps explained in the article. Hiring a freelancer to seek expert guidance is another option. But if you want to avoid staying out of the picture and not doing all the work manually, you can also use Instagram profile audit tools and other relevant products to assist you.

• What is the purpose of a social media audit?

A social media audit lets you assess how your social media activities compare to your corporate objectives. It also helps identify gaps or areas for improvement in your social media strategy, allowing you to make data-driven decisions and optimize your social media presence. 

• Is it hard to perform an Instagram audit?

An Instagram audit is a sequential process that might seem complicated but is quite simple. You need to follow ten steps that might take 30-60 minutes, depending on the duration you want to perform it far.

• How do you do an audit on Instagram?

You can use the checklist below, follow the steps, and run your own Instagram account audit.

• Profile Information
• Content Strategy
• Engagement
• Analytics
• Hashtag Strategy
• Visuals and Aesthetics
• Story Highlights
• Influencer Marketing
• Advertising Strategy
• Legal Compliance

Read More: Everything You Need to Know About Instagram Threads App