Optimizing Instagram Performance with an Audit

There’s never a bad time to run an Instagram audit.

Have your Instagram conversion and engagement rates been dwindling? Are your marketing campaigns falling flat no matter what strategies you employ?

Perhaps it's time to take a few steps back to re-evaluate your setup. An Instagram audit helps you do just that. 

And even if everything seems fine, an occasional audit is still necessary. It keeps you on your toes, helping sustain and enhance your performance. Furthermore, it helps you stay ahead of the curve and anticipate a decline before it occurs.

Here's how you can audit your Instagram performance in five easy steps:
 

1. Establish Your Goals & Performance Metrics

Before you start your Instagram audit, there are a few things that you need to put in place. For maximum effect, you need to be deliberate and systematic in your approach.

So, for a start, you need to explicitly state the business goals you aim to achieve with your Instagram account. Identify the things that really matter to you—may be brand awareness, product sales, market research, or a host of other reasons.

Secondly, you need to define metrics by which you would track your achievement of the stated goals. Your Instagram audit should help you determine how well you’ve been meeting those goals. 

It's also essential to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with each goal. You may want to look out for metrics like traffic, follower count, likes, or some other measure of interactions. You should set timelines and benchmarks to measure each of them objectively.

Simply put, what doesn’t get measured doesn’t get done. 
 

2. Audit Your Content

The key to Instagram marketing success is sharing quality content that resonates with your audience. Therefore, a thorough assessment of your content should be a priority.

You need to appraise your content structure, relevance, and timing. This will aid in consistently enhancing your engagement rates.
 

• Content Relevance

There are a few ways to figure out what kind of content works best for your line of business. One of them is to check for the posts that generated the highest engagements in the past. 

If you look closely enough, you might spot a pattern. Consolidate on this and continue to enhance your content quality. 
 

• Content Optimization

You need to also check how your content is being rendered from the user’s point of view. Are your contents properly optimized for mobile view? Are they constructed in line with Instagram’s recommended dimensions?

All of these can make a huge difference to your marketing goals.
 

• Content Timing

Timing is crucial to the success of almost anything in life, and Instagram marketing is not left out. You need to figure out if you're posting too often or not enough. In some cases, you might just be getting the timing of each post all wrong.

The good news is, along with a handful of external tools, Instagram also has its own built-in analytics page. You can use this strategically to spot the periods when your audience is more active.
 

3. Audit Your Audience

Yes, this may sound a bit outlandish to you. But if you keep overlooking it, all your efforts and big budgets may just keep going down the drain.

A huge follower count is great but it can easily mislead marketers. You may consistently record a disproportionate amount of actual engagements compared to your number of followers.

If you do, you need to figure out what has gone wrong. Generally, there are two main causes of this. You may be sharing content that your audience just isn't interested in. Secondly, you may have swathes of fake/bot followers. An audit of your Instagram should help you spot these.

Make concerted efforts to weed out the bot followers, and also take some time out to study the members of your ‘real’ audience. Click on their profiles, examine the accounts they follow, the type of content they share or repost, etc. This can serve as a guide for the types of content you will create in the future.
 

4. Audit Your Profile

Your Instagram account audit is never complete without an audit of your profile. Sometimes you may require an overhaul of your profile outlook.

Even if they're well-curated and error-free, your followers may simply get bored of seeing the same things all the time.

It's smart to tweak your bio and change your cover image or profile picture from time to time. This presents a fresher outlook to your audience. It really counts. 
 

5. Auditing Your Branding

In some cases, you may need to evaluate your brand’s visual identity. 

Firstly, you need to check the aesthetic of your overall feed. This will help you ensure that your page is easy on the eye. Make sure that the colors on your profile pages and cover images are well coordinated with your company logo and other campaign materials. 

The next step is to maintain a consistent brand outlook in every area. Your brand voice/tone should be consistent on each post.
 

Gear Up for Growth

An extensive Instagram audit will help you detect specific areas of decline. Whether it’s in your branding, content curation, user engagement, or your use of hashtags, auditing your account is a great way to re-evaluate your strategy.

It enables you to be proactive and find workable solutions before your competitors trample on you.

Also, it's important to remember that the market is dynamic. From time to time, you may have to update your business goals and strategy. To implement such changes effectively, an audit of current performance is required.

Running an audit of your Instagram account provides you valuable insights into your marketing and content strategy. It essentially helps you identify where to focus your Instagram marketing and ultimately enhance business growth.

Having started out with clear goals, always make sure that your findings are well documented and implemented.