Whatever your goals are as an Instagram creator, it’s essential to set aside time to assess what’s working and what isn’t. Hence, Instagram audits are a must if you’re wondering if your social media marketing efforts are on the right track.
For example, if you’re training for a marathon, you’ll probably want to meet with a trainer sometimes to check if you’re doing everything right. Similarly, you should do an Instagram audit if you’re seeking to build your influencer brand on this platform.
Even if all seems to be good with your Instagram marketing efforts, an Instagram audit is still a good idea. It lets you keep ahead of the curve and avoid problems before they occur. Do you have a sudden surge of fake followers? Is your posting schedule not bringing the same results as before? A thorough Instagram audit will provide answers to all of these concerns.
Let us dive into how you can run your own Instagram audit and all the aspects you need to check to keep your presence strong on the platform.
What Is Instagram Audit?
Consider an Instagram audit to be a health checkup for your profile on the social media network. Regular audits can help you discover any flaws in your marketing plan, allowing you to make modifications for improved engagement and more.
An Instagram audit is critical because it’s easy to lose sight of why we’re doing something in the competitive appscape. As a result, an Instagram audit may also be seen as a much-needed break to rethink the content you’re putting out into the world.
If you’ve recently defined or diversified your niche, you’ll need to conduct an audit to check that everything aligns with your new strategy. Go over every area of your Instagram account to ensure it’s the best it can be, cohesive, and makes sense to your audience.
Running An Instagram Audit
- Your Instagram goals and KPIs
Before you continue, can you answer this question: what are your long-term goals as a creator, and do they connect with your Instagram goals?.
Suppose you’re hustling to meet your daily Instagram post quota but aren’t getting the results you desire. It is one of the reasons why a regular audit is so vital for getting you back on track.
If you’re just starting, you might be concentrating on gaining momentum with your target market. In this scenario, your Instagram objective should be to build your following. Make sure you can accurately measure your goals after you’ve set them.
To do so, track multiple KPIs for each purpose. Any metric used to gauge success for a specific plan is a key performance indicator (KPI). For example, if your goal is to boost engagement, your KPIs would be the number of people who engage with your content.
- Your aesthetic, tone, and brand
Once you have updated and reiterated your goals, you’ll need to know how to convey your core message as part of your Instagram aesthetic. This is undoubtedly the most enjoyable part of your Instagram audit, so make the most of it!
- Take a close look at your Instagram profile to begin
- “Stalk” your own page
- Examine your profile’s color style, tone of voice, branding, hashtags, and engagement numbers
Do your goals and values align with your vision? You should also ensure that your Instagram account has the same look and feel as your other social media channels. Remember that preserving brand recall for your audience requires consistency in design too.
- Optimize your bio and profile
You only have 150 characters to create an impression on someone who visits your profile, so make them count! Is your account bio descriptive of your travel niche, or does it mention puppies and caramel lattes? Businesses want to know who you are as an influencer and how serious you are about your business. It should be consistent across all your social media profiles. Make sure the bio is written in a similar tone and provides the image you want to express about yourself. If you’re linking to a brand or affiliate link, that’s alright, but mention it in your bio. Don’t leave a random link without any explanation.
- Content – consistent posts and captions
Instagram stories, feed posts, reels, IGTV, Instagram Lives, guides, and shoppable posts are a few of the different types of content you can share. Your content selection should be well-balanced and representative of your brand. Furthermore, offering a variety of content styles keeps things exciting and fresh for your audience.
Also, think of your Instagram account as your portfolio to show yourself as a content creator. Go through all of your updates and remove everything that isn’t on-brand for you.
Of course, expecting to match your feel with every brand you pitch is impossible, but it’s critical to have consistent visuals so brands can recognize you.
- Hashtag strategy
Focus on selecting the proper hashtags for your content category while going through your posts.
Instead of using widely overused Instagram hashtags, look for ones that are smaller, more niche, and have a relevant audience. The best strategy is to investigate what hashtags your audience, competitors, and industry leaders are already using on Instagram. Instagram takes a poor view of accounts that overuse the same hashtags in all of their posts. Check that you’ve been using, but varying, hashtags in your previous Instagram posts as part of your Instagram audit.
- Community and following
Hang around in your profile’s comments section. Are you interacting with your audience enough? Are they talking to you? If not, what could be the problem? Do you receive DMs from your fans? If so, are you trying to respond to as many as possible?
Remember to follow Instagram influencers and personalities who share your brand’s beliefs. To reach a larger audience and expand your business community, support their work. Your Instagram analytics can also provide demographic information. Select “Post Interactions” from your insights. You can examine your most popular posts and Stories based on the number of likes, gender distribution, and the type of content that attracted the most followers. After doing your research, make sure you plan to create similar top-performing content.
- Growth strategies
Instagram is a competitive world where influencers from all over the globe and different niches are vying for attention. Hence it is crucial to have a plan of action handy for steady growth on the platform.
Here are some checkmarks for you to revisit periodically:
- Are you cross-promoting your Instagram posts on other platforms?
- Are you using hashtags and geographical tags to boost your visibility?
- Are you working with other influencers to create sponsored content?
- Are you hosting giveaways, takeovers, and other co-marketing efforts with like-minded accounts/brands?
- Are you receiving sponsored partnerships or running Instagram ads?
- Have you made customized GIFs or AR effects for your Instagram Stories?
Such growth strategies are for you to keep having a consistent reach on the platform, find new followers, and secure brand partnerships. Strive to secure beneficial collaborations with all parties – you, your audience, and your partners.
- Analytics
Your analytics have a lot to say about the health of your profile and what your future course of action should be. As you track your metrics, you will notice some posts didn’t perform well while others exceeded your expectations. The more you learn about what works and what doesn’t, the more you’ll be able to develop engaging content for your audience in the future.
For example, if you notice that your Instagram Stories are gaining traction, but your IGTV clips aren’t, you might want to spend more time developing story content. After you’ve gathered all of your Instagram stats and discovered audience insights, you’ll be able to further enhance your account by adjusting your posting times or developing more specific content types.
Audit Your Other Accounts As Well!
Here are some quick bites for your other social media accounts if you decide to run an audit on them too.
TikTok
- Set goals for your account and determine your target audience
- Ensure your bio is cohesive with your other social profiles and states your USP as much to the point as possible
- Check the overall vibe of your TikTok account, see whether it feels planned and uniform
- Check that the videos you’re posting are consistent with your brand and category
- Make sure you’ve used relevant hashtags and all the best practices associated with them
- Check your levels of engagement
- Collaborate with other creators and engage with your audience
- Assess the quality of your followers to make sure you are reaching the ones relevant to your content
- Organize your Facebook assets using Business Manager, and make sure you know how it works.
- Maintain a detailed, accurate public profile, complete with a high-res profile picture and a header image
- Don’t forget to include your call-to-action (CTA) buttons, such as sign-up or play now buttons
- Check whether you use recommendations, lists, and guidance to encourage conversations or innovative and visually appealing content to entertain your audience
- Use high-quality, high-resolution content, the correct dimensions, guidelines, and explicit descriptions
- Polish your profile with all the key information, and ensure you include a professional display image, header image, and industry keywords
- Know who follows you as a group of high-level executives, for example, will have different needs than a group of beginners
- Consistently refine your content strategy to create trust and improve your reputation as a thought leader
- Examine how your competitors’ Pages are functioning to figure out how you rank, get ideas, and find ways to differentiate your strategy
YouTube
- Find the number of people who have subscribed to your content and watched it
- Calculate the number of organic views, which will show you how well your channel does in the algorithm
- The amount of time spent watching your YouTube videos is one of the essential KPIs. Go to Analytics > Watch Time Reports > Watch Time in Creator Studio to find this metric.
- Watch which videos are frequently recommended in your topic area so you can try to replicate their performance
- Optimize your YouTube channel for search and use audits to measure the impact of your efforts
Gear Up For Growth With Instagram Audits
An Instagram audit will give you essential feedback about your marketing and content strategy. It’s the secret to enhancing your Instagram growth and success. Before you begin your audit, make sure you have a clear goal in mind, so you know where to focus your efforts.
A robust, healthy, well-audited account can be your ticket to land brand partnerships. Often influencers find brand sponsorship talks confusing and dread lengthy negotiations. Atisfyre, our AI-based platform, does the heavy lifting of brand collaborations on your behalf, matching you to the best business based on your interests and more. Better yet, it is FREE for influencers!
Get ready to monetize your recently audited account! Sign up on Atisfyre.
