Maximize Your Instagram Success: Your 9 Step Quarterly Instagram Review Guide

Sometimes we can be so busy working in our businesses that we forget to work on our businesses. 

It's a old and hackneyed saying, but for a good reason.  It's true.

This week I would like to suggest that you set aside a couple of hours to work on your business instead of in it to ensure that you can get the most from your efforts on Instagram in this last three months of the year.

The Top 9 things you should do this week, to set yourself up for success on Instagram in the last quarter of this year.

I expect this will take 1- 2 hours maximum. If you can’t do it right now grab your diary and block out the time sometime in the next 7 days. Think of it as a tea date with me chatting all things Instagram. Send me a DM when you are doing it even and I will put the kettle on.

And if you’re thinking as you read this “I just don’t have the time right now, I will save it and do it later” can I please suggest you read and complete 1 and 2 on the list right now, because neither will take more than a few minutes and 1 has the potential to save you untold anguish this year, and 2 has the potential to dramatically increase your sales potential.

So, without further rambling, lets get into it.

1. Make sure your Instagram account is safe from hackers and scammers

Before you do anything else, revisit your Instagram security measures.  If you don’t know what I am talking about pop over to this post here where I go through everything you need to know to keep your Instagram safe and sound.  You may have read this post before but a quick refresher helps keep to the forefront of our mind the sort of scams that exist out there, and how to avoid falling prey to them.

2. Audit your Instagram Bio

At the very minimum, run a quick audit of your Bio.  Is it still representative of what you do and who you do it for? Is the location still correct? Are the links all still working and if you have link tree or multiple links, are they in good order with the most relevant at the top? Is there a relevant call to action?  These are all quick and simple things you can do now, to help make sure that your Bio is serving you in the future.

3. What is your Instagram ‘why’

Revisit or, if you’ve not done it before, define your ‘why’. Before you post anything else this week, ask yourself - why? What is it you are doing on Instagram? Are you building a brand, sharing your passion, or connecting with a community? Knowing your purpose fuels your content and attracts the right audience. My why has changed this year for the first time in 7 years and while my aesthetics haven't changed, the content I deliver absolutely has. 

4. Revisit who you understand your Instagram audience to be

Check in and see if you can quickly and clearly define who it is you are talking to on Insta.  If you can't rattle off the top of your head a series of defining character traits about the people you serve through your content, now might be a good time to do some deeper work on this aspect of your business.

Knowing who your people are, what is it they are interested in, what talks to them visually, what words resonate with them, what sort of music they like, the other accounts they look up to on Instagram and how they self identify... these are really all fundamentally important if you want to build a brand that shines both on Instagram and off.  (And if you are at a loss for how to approach this you may want to consider booking in a 1:1 coaching session with me to help really get that clarity.  Find out more HERE)

5. Revisit your Instagram posting schedule

Grab your diary.  Mark up all critical dates in it for your selling leading into Christmas and holidays. Do you have markets or workshops, big orders or shop updates you need to support with your Instagram content?

When are you taking your Instagram breaks?

Commit to a posting schedule for this last three months and diarise it.

Look at your different feeds and decide how you will use them and how often. Making that decision removes the ‘should I / shouldn’t I post?’ daily decision making and the decision fatigue it brings.  Know when and where and what you will post.  Then your followers will know what to expect too. 

6. Plan for when you are creating Instagram content

Following on from deciding when to post and what to post, set aside time each month for batch creating as much content as you can.  Diarise it. Some content may never be able to be batch created, but covering off once a month on as much as possible will just make life that little bit easier. 

7. Revisit your hashtags list. 

There’s lots of differing opinions these days about the role of hashtags, but the simple truth is that they are still an extra way for you to reach more people organically, when used right. If you have a hash tag strategy in play that makes using hash tags easy, including them when posting is a no brainer.

If you haven't revisited your Hashtags lists recently now is a good time to do it.  If you've never had a hashtags strategy in play before you can grab my FREE GUIDE HERE .  I take you step by step through the process of finding and curating hashtag lists that are optimised to help you reach the right people and grow organically.

8. Audit your Instagram Favourites 

Now this is a little granular, but I think worth doing particularly if you have a full ‘Favourite’ list of accounts you follow. *

First up pop over to your profile page.

On the top right hand side, you will see three lines. 

Click on these to take you into your settings.

Click on the star icon that says ‘Favourites’.

Scroll through you Favourites list and just check that the accounts here are still those you wish to be prioritised in terms of being shown to you more frequently than others.

Remove any accounts that no longer suit your Instagram strategy or purpose. 

Now check if there are any missing from the list, and if there are, search them up and add them. 

There will be recommended accounts at the bottom which you can add too if they make sense to your current IG strategy.

Keep in mind there is a limit of only 50 accounts that can be added to your Favourites accounts list, so you want to choose them strategically. 

And there you have it.  Your Favourites is set to go.

9. Do a Stories Highlights Edit

Go to your Stories Highlights on Instagram.

Are your covers uniform and on brand?

Do the titles convey what the Stories are about easily?

Do you need to add any Highlights?

Do you need to remove any Highlights?

Do you need to pop into any Highlights and go through adding up to date Stories from within?

And that's it!

You now know what you are doing, when you are doing it, why you are doing it and how you are doing it.  You know who you are speaking to. You know that your Bio has been optimised to attract the right people and all your links are working. And you are empowered to keep your account safe from all the wannabe scammers.  

You’re now ready to ace this last quarter on Instagram!

Send me a DM when you’ve done all the steps and I’ll high five you online from my little house on a hill, here in the Barossa.

X Ilona 

*  If you’re thinking wait, what? If you go to the profile page of any account you follow you can click on the Following tab under their Bio and tap on the star to add them to your Favourites account list. This will mean the account is prioritised in your feed and shows up in your Favourites feed too. Your Favourites feed can be found by going to your main feed page, tapping on the Instagram icon drop down menu and tapping on Favourites.

Written by Ilona Glastonbury