5 Steps to Auditing Your Instagram Profile

While the social media strategy gets all the buzz and love, you can’t create an effective strategy without an audit.

An Instagram audit helps you determine what’s working and what isn’t. It helps you understand the kinds of content your community resonates with: is it video? Carousel? Stories? Posts about your products? Behind the scenes? Inspiration?

An Instagram audit gives you the chance to understand your community and identify ways to improve, which is what we want, right? 

There’s two parts to an Instagram audit: your profile and your content. 

Auditing your Instagram profile isn’t something you need to do often. You can do it quarterly or as needed, but it’s the first step in making sure your accounts are optimized to achieve your goals (like turning all those profile views into follows). 

Let’s get into it.  

P.S – If you don’t want to do this yourself, you can hire me to do it for you with a Make it Make Sense Instagram Audit.

Before We Start: The Basics of an Instagram Profile Audit

When auditing your Instagram profile, you want a profile that’s complete, consistent, and searchable.

• A complete Instagram profile shows that you’re a reputable, reliable, legit business. That’s pretty important, right? And it streamlines your customer’s experience because they’ll be able to easily find the information they’re looking for. Create a bio that communicates who you are and what you do, add a link to your website so followers can learn more and shop, add your email or shop location so they can contact you, and if you use Shopify, link it to your IG so you can tag products.

• An Instagram profile that’s consistent with your website and other marketing helps you present a strong brand across platforms. Hello brand awareness!

• An Instagram profile that’s searchable helps customers find you before they even know they need *you*. For example, if you sell a line of adaptogenic powders, you’ll want your account to appear for searches like “adaptogen”. 

Step #1: Choose Your Instagram Username

In an ideal world you’ll be able to use your business name for your Instagram username.

But that’s not always possible, especially if you’re using your personal name or if your business name is a common word. For example, @SarahPrice is taken so I used a @SarahPrice.co for my original Instagram username. (Now, post-rebrand, you can find me here). You can add a period or underscore, add ‘shop’ at the beginning, add a verb like ‘drink’ at the beginning, or add ‘official’ at the end. 

What’s most important is using the same username across social media platforms so it’s easy for customers to find you.

Step #2: Choose Your Instagram Profile Image

Your Instagram profile image should be eye-catching, easy to read, and on-brand. It should be the same for each social media platform and for most businesses I recommend using your logo or a recognizable brand mark.

Step #3: Audit Your Instagram Bio

Use your Instagram bio to communicate who you are, what you do, who you help, and what sets you apart from the competition. Add a call to action like “shop the new collection” or “sign up for the waitlist”. 

Get my step-by-step process for creating your Instagram bio in this guide.

Ensure it’s consistent across the social media platforms you’re using. You might have to shorten it depending on the platform’s bio length restrictions, but keep it as close as possible. 

Step #4: Audit Your Instagram Story Highlights

Once your Instagram username, profile image, and bio are all set, take a look at your Instagram story highlights. 

Your Instagram story highlights should be just that: highlights. I beg you not to save every single Instagram story you’ve ever posted here. That’s so overwhelming to a new customer and it won’t do you much good. 

Instead, save the most valuable information that a new customer absolutely needs to know. Here are some examples: 

• About the Brand
• Product Information
• Recipes & Tutorials
• Customer Reviews 

Update them at least quarterly to ensure the information is relevant and on-brand. You can have fun with the cover images: try colour blocks, graphics, photos, whatever is most consistent with your branding. 

Step #5: Audit Your Instagram Pinned Posts

Last but not least is your Instagram pinned posts. Similar to your Instagram story highlights, these posts will be viewed by a new customer who’s just visited your profile for the first time. 

The posts should be relevant, up-to-date, and provide important information to your new customer. Here are some examples: 

• About the Brand
• Newest Product, Sale, or Campaign
• Educational Post About the Products

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Wait, Who Am I?

Hiiii! 👋🏻 I’m Sarah, an online entrepreneur & marketer of over 10 years. I went from starting a clean beauty blog right out of high school to managing social media for Canada’s largest wellness retailer. Now I live in the middle of nowhere in North Carolina, helping high-growth entrepreneurs get SEEN so they can build a crazy fun life their business supports, and not the other way around.

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