How to Run an Instagram Audit in Six Steps

An Instagram audit allows you to examine if you are meeting your business goals or not.

If you manage an Instagram account for your business, you should carry out regular Instagram audits to ensure that you use it as effectively as possible.

Discover what an Instagram audit is, how to run an Instagram audit and the benefits.

What is an Instagram audit?

Whether you've been using Instagram for several months or years, running an Instagram audit for your brand is always a good idea.

Why?

The goal is to make sure every Instagram post, story, Reel, or IGTV you share is helping to support your brand's objectives.

Benefits of an Instagram audit

By conducting an Instagram audit, you'll be able to see:

• What is the most liked, commented, and shared content on your Instagram account.
• Review your strategy - you might discover that your old strategy worked better than your new one.
• See what Instagram posts no longer comply with your strategy, tone of voice, or brand values.

How to perform an Instagram audit in 6 steps

1. Set your goals and Instagram KPIs

Before starting an Instagram audit, ask yourself: what are my business goals, and do they align with my Instagram goals?

For example, if you are at the beginning of your business, you might be focused on getting more engagement on your posts. In this case, your Instagram goal should be to increase the number of your followers.

Maybe you want to increase your sales, attract more customers or increase engagement.

Once you've set your goals, make sure you can measure them correctly. To do this, you can set several KPIs to track for each purpose.

2. Examine your profile

The first thing to do is to see if the profile picture is old and if it is, you should update it immediately.

The best advice here would be to upload your brand's logo as your profile picture. Make sure that you use the correct Instagram profile picture size – 180x180 px.

You need to ensure that your Instagram profile matches your branding and tone.

Next, you have 150 characters to use for your Instagram bio.

Your bio should capture the attention of your audience. This will be your first impression to many people, so make it remarkable.?

Important! Your Instagram bio is the only place you can add a clickable link, so make sure you add your website, blog post, or any other page you want to promote.

For example, many businesses create specific landing pages for current promotions or fresh content and then change the profile link to direct to the latest page.?

Influencers often use this link to lead people to a webpage for a company they are currently working with.

Another important thing is your page name and your username.

Your page name will display beneath your username. If you could use your brand as your username, you could then use your tagline as your page name.?

Alternatively, that is where you would write your brand name if you couldn't get it as your username.

Tip ??

Adding hashtags to your bio is an excellent way to share your interests with your audience. Try adding a hashtag to your Instagram bio to make it more functional.

3. Check your posts and captions are consistent

The most successful companies on Instagram don’t post random material. They make posts that relate to the current goals they are pursuing.?

Posts tell a consistent story and have a similar look and feel about them.

Your audience should understand what you have to offer by looking at any post.

While you are carrying out your Instagram audit, it is worthwhile revisiting some individual posts. Check your captions. Do they match both the tone of your image and your overall goals? Are you sharing high-quality images?

In particular, take notice of any posts that underperform. Ask yourself why fewer people have liked or shared those posts. Does a specific type of post resound less with your audience?

4. Analyze your hashtag strategy

Are hashtags still relevant in 2022??

A few weeks ago,?Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said that Instagram hashtags don't "really" help with post distribution in one of his Stories.

Recently I read a study done by Socialinsider, where they studied over 75 million Instagram photos to determine if hashtags could help brands get more exposure.?

Here are some essential insights from the study:

??Instagram hashtags do not aid in the distribution of posts

??Accounts with larger followings should only use three to four hashtags to get greater impression rates

??Mid-sized accounts, however, have a more significant impression rate if they use more than five hashtags

5. Examine your posting frequency

Are you posting too much or not enough on Instagram? Or are you posting at a time when you're audience is online?

The number of Instagram posts and the time you publish the content will influence your overall engagement.

6. How is your interaction with your community?

Finally, you want to look at your interaction and engagement with your community. Take another look at your most recent posts.?

Check that you have responded appropriately to comments and have genuine conversations with your followers.

Also, check that you respond to all of your direct messages, not making people feel that you are ignoring them.

Once you have carried out the steps of your Instagram audit, please take note of anything you can do to improve your Instagram account and its usage.

Your Instagram profile can help you level up your business if used right.

When was the last time you performed an Instagram audit for your brand?