With millions of active users, Instagram has rightfully earned its place as one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, especially when it comes to sharing photos. And this makes it a highly effective platform for marketing your brand – especially if you collaborate with an influencer. But, as with all platforms, there are also many fake accounts on the platform that you need to watch out for. And that’s why it’s always a good idea to run an Instagram audit from time to time.
An Instagram audit is a valuable tool for verifying if an influencer is real and as popular as they appear. Plus, even if an influencer account is real, you also need to make sure their metrics are good and that they would be a good fit for your brand. In other words, an Instagram audit helps you to determine if an influencer can deliver what they promise.
What Is an Instagram Audit?
An Instagram audit is an effective way of checking the authenticity and quality of an Instagram profile. In other words, whether it is a genuine account run by a real person that generates a positive impact. An audit is also a great way to check whether the followers associated with an account are real, or if the user in question has purchased or created fake profiles to make them seem more popular than they really are.
This is important for two reasons. Firstly, you want to ensure that your own followers are real so that Instagram doesn’t flag you as being a suspicious. Secondly, it’s a great way to verify the authenticity of an influencer you are considering collaborating with. Plus, the process provides you with valuable insights into their experience and achievements so that you can determine if they are a quality match for your brand and could fulfil your expectations in terms of campaign performance.
How Do You Conduct an Instagram Audit?
There are a few steps to follow when you conduct an Instagram audit.
Firstly, you need to establish your goals. Are you looking to audit your own profile or that of an influencer? If you are looking to audit an influencer, are you more focused on checking for fake followers, or conducting a more generalized Instagram audit to verify their performance and engagement levels?
For the rest of this article, we are going to focus on influencer audits.
Once you’ve established your goal, you need to conduct the audit itself. The first thing you need to do is look into the quality of an influencer’s audience. Don’t be swayed just because an influencer has a large number of followers. Instead, look at the level of interaction and engagement on their profile. Do many people comment on their posts? Is the influencer responsive? Do their brand values align with yours? Then take a look at the quality of their followers. Do they seem genuine? Do their interests suggest that they might be interested in your brand? You can do all this manually, but it’s far easier to use tools and software to speed up the process (more on this shortly).
Why Is it Useful?
An Instagram audit is especially useful when it comes to influencer marketing. This is because you need to be sure that an influencer is capable of generating the level of interaction and engagement that you need for your campaign to be a success. It’s also a valuable opportunity to check out their overall influencer KPIs to work out if they are a good fit for your brand.
With an Influencer audit you can find out if:
- An influencer’s audience is authentic or if they have any fake followers.
- Their engagement metrics are strong enough to make a noticeable impact with your campaign.
- The fee they are proposing for a collaboration aligns with what they claim they can offer in terms of campaign performance.
- An influencer’s audience aligns with your target market and, consequently, whether their followers might be interested in your brand. This includes demographics, likes, and interests. This also helps you create more tailored content when you do pick an influencer to work with.
- They share the same brand values as you.
- Their past campaigns have been successful and generated a noticeable ROI for the brands they promote.
- Your account includes any fake followers that might negatively impact your own brand image (if you also conduct an audit on your own account).
What Kind of Results Can You Obtain?
Once you’ve conducted an Instagram audit on an influencer, you need to analyze your influencer analytics. Did the influencer make a positive impact with any past campaigns on their profile? Do their engagement metrics align with your campaign expectations? Are they capable of achieving the level of reach and engagement that they claim? Could any of their followers be fake profiles? What is their follower growth rate like?
One of the most effective ways to conduct an Instagram audit is to use software like Influencity.
Influencity’s platform includes a range of tools for analyzing every aspect of an influencer’s performace. For instance, you can see their like and follower historicals to see how their popularity has grown (or shrunk) over time. You can also see the percentage of their audience that can be considered doubtful and therefore of little use to your brand. Finally, you can compare their engagement rate with that of influencers with a similar community size to see where they fall in respect to their peers. The platform also gives you the tools to meausure your performance after the campaign.
