How to Check your Instagram Account, Algorithm and Nuances of Verification? – 2024 Guide

Auditing allows you to find weaknesses and growth points, form a strategy for content and promotion. One of the main things is that you need to understand how to audit Instagram account: personal blog, influencer page or brand page. To increase popularity and the overall reputation of any account, including yours visit insta4likes.com. So here are the steps you need to know:

Step 1: Set Your Goals

In the first step, understand what tasks your account performs. What is its purpose?

• Promotion of an expert’s brand;
• Reaching the maximum number of audiences;
• Brand image;
• A way to communicate with users for the brand;
• The source of the traffic to the site;
• Sales generation for the store.

Designate goals, that is, the parameters by which you will determine the effectiveness:

• Audience activity (number of reactions under posts, participants in contests);
• The quantity and quality of traffic to the site;
• Number of sales;
• Reach of publications and stories.

Your goals must be specific, measurable and relevant to the task.

Step 2: brand and account positioning

It is important that the Instagram account does not get out of the general tonality of brand communication, and also performs the main task. When you visit a coffee shop’s account, the user should understand at a glance what the company is offering and how to get it.

Yes, there are exceptions and original creative strategies – but now we are talking about general rules. The ones that need to be studied. The profile photo, bio text, pinned Stories, the text under the photo and comments on behalf of the account must correspond to the brand’s general look.

Therefore, the first question of Instagram audit at this stage: does the account have a clear visual style and tonality of communication? Do they relate to brand communication on other channels?

Answer the questions by looking at the bio, avatar and pinned stories:

• What topic is the account dedicated to?
• Is it clear what the brand offers / How does a blogger differ from others?
• Do text and photo styles reflect the tone of the brand/blogger?

Step 3: audit the content strategy

The main part of the audit and in general the account is the content. Users start following your page, and because they like it, they react to publications, remember your company and loyally react to your advertising.

The audience should understand who you are and what you offer by viewing several publications in your account without reading all of them. And before you analyze all the publications, evaluate the first impression of the profile: the last 9 publications.

Analysis of photo and video content on Instagram

Instagram users appreciate the overall aesthetics of the account. Therefore, all photos and videos laid out in the account’s feed should be in harmony with each other.

They should not be completely similar: the same processing of all posts without exception was in fashion in 2014-2016. Now the photos should be different, but together create a similar mood and be similar in style. For example, several colors are constantly repeated.

When conducting an Instagram audit, rate:

1. Does graphic content have a common style?
2. Are there errors in the layout of the feed: close-ups are located close to each other, the same type of pictures are repeated too often (for example, many images of a product in a row, and then images of people).
3. Is the content diverse? General style does not mean the same. Followers will not appreciate dozens of similar photos in the feed.
4. Is it clear from the last 9 posts (without looking at the bio and profile photos) what the account is about?
5. Consider each photo individually: quality, composition, originality in comparison with competitors and relevance. Instagram users see high-quality content every day, and they will not accept “non-modern” frames similar to the content of photo stocks.
6. Look at the format of photos and videos in the feed: what is their orientation? Horizontal shots (1:1 ratio take up less space in the user’s stream, which means they attract less attention), while vertical shots, in a 4:5 ratio, open almost the entire screen.

Evaluation of the captions in Instagram accounts

As in the analysis of any SMM community, evaluate the account’s content strategy:

• What categories are used in the content?
• How often do they recur?
• Alternating post types: company news, grocery posts, useful posts, other content.
• Is it interesting for a user to follow such an account – will the user get useful and inspiring content different from the publications of competitors?
• Will the user want to continue following your account or will he get tired of the monotony of publications?

Look at the layout of the texts:

• Text length;
• Use of paragraphs indents;
• Using emoji – relevance, frequency.
• Using different formats.

Check if all Instagram features have been tested in your account. In addition to publications in the feed, brands can publish Stories, publish polls in them, upload videos in IGTV format and conduct live broadcasts.

Step 4: Engaging and Engaging Your Audience

After a qualitative analysis, go on to quantitative. Rate all measurable metrics:

• The number of followers;
• The average number of publications per month / per week / per day;
• ER, engagement rate;
• The average number of comments under posts;
• The number of likes.

Step 5: brand communication

Both brands and bloggers should work with the audience – respond to their comments and respond DMs.

• Rate the speed and quality of responses in the comments below the publications;
• All questions and comments are answered;
• The brand solves the user’s problem;
• The tone of answers corresponds to the general tone of communication of the account.

In addition to reactions within the account, it is important to interact with references: even large pages and influencers like or comment on posts with tags or hashtags, publish content in a feed or Stories.

Step 6: growth points

Complete your Instagram account audit with recommendations for future work.

During the analysis, you will find weaknesses. Suggest solutions for them: changing the visual style of the profile, changing the content strategy, improving communication with the audience.

Include an assessment of Instagram trends and content marketing in your recommendations: which new formats should the brand test? What topics to focus on?