Every quarter we like to audit not only our social media channels but also our clients, especially Instagram. It’s a great time to make sure links work, update photos, look at the aesthetics of the feed, look over our bio and so much more.

When we are doing audits we like to go left to right then up and down. So, let’s start there.

Audit Your Bio

Your bio is the first place people go when they go to your Instagram profile. Think of your Instagram bio as your storefront. Have you ever scrolled in a mall and gone into a store because you see the outfits on the mannequins? Well, your bio should be a show-stopper.

There are 4 things we look at when auditing Instagram bios:

Photo: Make sure your photo is a photo of you. Not your pet, not your kids but you. When was the last time you changed out this photo? We like to change out our bio photo quarterly. It is the first thing people see so we like to change it up.
Name: We can now have our name and full title. People connect with people so let people know who you are and your title. For example Bianca Smith – Social Media Strategist
Bio: You should have an ”I help” statement. Who do you help and how?
Call to Action: Your bio should have a call to action. What do you want people to do? Book a call, grab a freebie, etc.

You have seconds to grab someone’s attention so let’s make it count!

Story Highlights

Honestly, ask yourself, “when was the last time I looked at my story highlights?”

Highlights can take your Instagram feed to a whole other level. It’s the sprinkles on your cupcake. You can easily make highlights in Canva. You can make them plain (we like plain) or add an image for example if you have a podcast you can add a podcast image. The biggest mistake we see people do is to have a ton of highlights or so many stories in one highlight you feel you are forever clicking through. Remember we have short attention spans. We like to follow the 5×10 rule. Ok, we just made that up but it’s useful. No more than 5 highlights with 10 stories in each. The moral of the story is (ha! love the pun?) you don’t want a lot of highlights with a ton of stories in each highlight.

Look through your highlight stories and see if they are still relevant and how old they are. Over a year old and not relevant, DELETE!

Feed

Your feed is the core of your Instagram. Keeping with the store analogy, your bio got people in the door now your feed is where they are going to do some shopping. Well, we hope right?

Your first 9 photos are what people normally look at. Is it on brand, can someone tell what you do? Now, how aesthetically pleasing should your feed look? This is up to you. We love a good aesthetically pleasing feed however some people can care less. So we are going to leave this up to you. What we will say is that regardless of what you choose it should still be on brand.

Look at the type of content you are putting out. Is it still relevant? Have you added or taken away a service? Do you have a variety of posts or is it all reels, or all static photos? Your feed should be diversified.

Followers

We love to see how many followers we have so it can be disappointing and not wanting to clear out bot accounts. However, you want to make sure to have a positive engagement rate. If you aren’t sure how to clear out bot/spam accounts check out my bot/spam highlight on Instagram.

When people follow us we look at their account and if we feel it’s a bot or they will spam us we block them. We would rather have low followers than a bunch of fake followers. Remember followers don’t equate to sales.

We suggest you audit your Instagram at least every 6 months however, we like to do it quarterly. How often you choose is up to you, just make sure to put it on your calendar.

We are always looking for ways to help you Simplify Your Business so grab this FREE Instagram Audit Checklist.