Instagram is a must-have platform for most B2C and even B2B brands, owing to its large user base and engagement rates.
If you really want to maximize your presence on Instagram, you need to look to your competitors. And what better way to do that than competitor analysis?
In this guide, I’ll show you the steps you need for a productive Instagram competitor analysis and recommend tools to make the process easier.
Let’s see how you can boost your Instagram KPIs through a methodical analysis.
What is an Instagram competitor analysis?
Instagram competitor analysis is a type of social media competitor analysis and follows the same process.
A competitor analysis is a methodical examination of your competitor’s performance using metrics to spot weaknesses and strengths and ultimately, improve your own performance.
Why perform an Instagram competitor analysis?
See how your business measures up
Competitor analysis for Instagram is a way to sharpen your social media strategy by setting benchmarks for your business using your competitors.
For example, if your competitor posts on Instagram daily and is getting good engagement, you can look into daily posting, if you’re not already doing it.
Find content inspiration
Secondly, you can get social media content ideas by doing a survey of your competitors. Scope out which posts are the most engaging and analyze why they resonated with their target audience.
You can also see different post formats and copywriting hooks and angles to integrate in your posts.
Know their strategy
Competitor analysis makes your competitor’s thinking more visible. That is, you’ll know how they want to position themselves and what unique value proposition they are trying to communicate.
You can also discover what their goals are with their Instagram presence and how the platform fits into their overall marketing plan. You can also see clearly how they try to bait the audience’s attention and whether those efforts are succeeding.
Monitor your industry and stay current with trends
Industries and niches are dynamic. When you don’t monitor your competitors, you will certainly fall behind.
It’s also vital to keep learning from your peers and see if they introduce anything new to their content rotation, tone, angles, posting frequency, and others.
Aside from that, you can track shifts in audience preferences or influx of new entrants quickly, so you can mitigate threats to your revenue before they get out of hand.
How to run an Instagram competitor analysis
Step 1: Identify your Instagram competitors
First, you have to know which competitors are worth benchmarking. You can’t include all your competitors. More is not better and having many competitors to analyze will waste your time.
Usually, you will pick a handful of direct competitors or those who either have the same product you sell or fulfill the same need as your business.
If you’re a handbag brand, your competitors are other stores that sell handbags. For example, Bose and Apple both sell headphones and are direct competitors.
You can also identify indirect competitors or competitors who you share a target audience with.
These are different from your direct competitors because you don’t sell the same product as your indirect competitors. However, you are both vying for the same audience’s attention.
You can’t include all your competitors. More is not better and having many competitors to analyze will waste your time.
A notable example of indirect competitors is Blockbuster and Netflix. Blockbuster allows their customers to rent movies.
Netflix offers a different service entirely–online movie streaming. However, their audience was the same: those who want to watch movies at home for a fraction of the cost of buying a movie ticket.
Step 2: Collect information
List your top three to five competitors (or as many as you like) and visit their Instagram pages.
You can use a spreadsheet to note their follower count, how many posts they have in a day or week, and how many likes and comments their posts have.
Track qualitative data too like the types of posts they have (carousels, reels, infographics, etc.), hashtags, and general audience sentiments on their posts.
Collect only the information that’s relevant to your business. If you don’t care about hashtags, you can do without them.
You have to accrue a lot of information to have something worth analyzing so this step might take weeks and months.
Do regular checking on their profiles or use an analytics tool like Panoramata to check up on your competitors’ Instagram profiles for you.
Step 3: Create a report and analyze
Next, create a report that summarizes key findings from the data gathered. Draw out trends and patterns you notice. Assess their performance based on the metrics you see. Lastly, compare your performance with theirs.
Step 4: Track their Instagram activity regularly
Competitor analysis is not a one-time thing. For it to be effective, you have to do regular competitor tracking and reviews.
You need to update the data you’ve collected in order to have accurate insights.
How to Use Panoramata for Instagram Competitor Analysis
Step 1: Sign up for Panoramata
You can create a Panoramata account for free. Sign up here to start tracking your competitors.
Step 2: Go to your competitor’s brand profile and click on the Socials tab.
Locate your competitor on Panoramata by using the search bar.
If you don’t find your competitor on the platform, reach out to our support team, and we can start tracking them for you.
Next, on your competitor’s brand profile, click on the Socials tab on the upper right.
Here’s what you can do to analyze a competitor’s Instagram performance using Panoramata.
View stats at a glance
View metric changes over time
View your competitors’ content directly on Panoramata, including video posts
View engagement metrics for each individual post
View, sort, and filter through relevant Instagram
Use keywords to refine your search
Save posts to a list for quick reference
Create benchmark reports and compare multiple competitors’ social media statistics
Important Instagram metrics to track when analyzing competitors
Followers and follower growth
Follower count is important but follower growth is just as important to track when evaluating your Instagram competitors.
Some Instagram accounts have tens of thousands of followers but very little activity from their followers, and therefore, low engagement. Follower count is not the end-all of social media strategy.
However, the growth of follower count does tell you something about the effectiveness of your competitor’s Instagram tactics. A sudden spike in numbers could mean that a recent campaign is paying off.
Likes and comments
Likes and comments are the most important engagement metrics on Instagram. Likes are a positive metric. More is better.
However, comments are not as cut and dry. Controversial posts draw more comments (mostly negative), so more comments does not always mean a positive brand interaction.
But to start with, you need to track these two metrics together, along with the previous metric of follower count.
Engagement is a measure of post quality and worth tracking. The better the post, the more it is liked and commented on. It shows you and your audience that a brand is resonating with people.
More engagement also spikes impressions because the algorithm will show your posts to more people’s Explore pages.
Measure these metrics for each competitor post to see what’s really working on Instagram.
Top posts
Your competitors’ top posts will tell you a lot about what content will be most engaging to your audience. It’s a very insightful piece of their of their Instagram page.
This can be further segmented into posts with the most likes and posts with the most comments.
By identifying top posts, you can analyze why those posts performed the best and apply those techniques to your own Instagram posts.
Boost Engagement with Instagram Competitor Analysis
A thorough Instagram competitor analysis is not merely about observing; it's about strategizing and adapting.
By consistently identifying your key competitors, collecting relevant data—both quantitative and qualitative—and then meticulously analyzing these insights, you gain a crucial understanding of the Instagram landscape.
This ongoing process of tracking and comparing your performance against others allows you to refine your content strategy, discover new opportunities, and ultimately boost your key performance indicators on the platform.
Embracing competitor analysis as a continuous practice will empower your brand to stay ahead of trends and maintain a strong, engaging presence on Instagram.
Ready to start your own competitive analysis? Grab your free competitive analysis template below. If you’d like to learn more about Panoramata, book a demo with us or take it out for a spin by signing up here.
FAQs
Why is Instagram competitor analysis important for my brand?
It helps you set benchmarks, find content ideas, understand competitor strategies, and stay current with industry trends to improve your own performance.
What kind of information should I collect about my competitors?
You should collect both quantitative data like follower count, likes, and comments, and qualitative data such as post types, hashtags, and audience sentiments.
How often should I perform an Instagram competitor analysis?
Competitor analysis is not a one-time task; it needs to be done regularly to update your data and gain accurate, ongoing insights.
