Steal my end-of-year Instagram checklist

Dec 16

This blog post is all about setting your Instagram up for success as we end 2023 and enter 2024.

The holiday season can be a busy and overwhelming time, but there are bite-sized action items you can take to reset your Instagram account as you enter your biggest season of business growth yet — that’s right, you better claim it!

Here is my general end-of-year checklist, tips, and reminders that I commit to every December for both myself and my social media clients.

Have realistic expectations: During the holidays, it’s pretty normal to experience lower reach.

This is due to increased holiday travel, more competition as many businesses push their holiday sales and try to meet their annual goals, and a big spike in businesses using paid ads to promote their products, which may get some extra love from Instagram.

Don’t let this discourage you going into the new year!

Expect a drop in followers: I’m pretty conditioned to anticipate a drop at the start of each year.

People make new year's resolutions to deactivate their accounts or unfollow accounts that don’t benefit them.

That’s ok!

Find comfort in knowing that most of us will be in the same boat and it’s not necessarily a reflection of your brand.

Now for some important and mostly simple steps to cleanse and reset your Instagram for the new year:

Refresh your bio: This is the first thing people see on your page.
Does your bio clearly state what you do, who you help, summarize your credentials, etc?
The end of each year is a good time to revisit those questions because as you evolve and grow, your bio may be outdated or no longer reflect what you have to offer.
Refresh your story highlights: Go through and remove any stories that are no longer relevant.
If you post frequently, consider removing stories that took place over a year ago.
You don’t want viewers working too hard to find your newer stories.
Audit your last 9 posts: Are they a good reflection of your brand, business, story, services, etc.?
If not, you want to think about what WOULD reflect your brand.
Remove inactive/fake followers: We all feel validated with more followers, but those followers aren’t always interested in what you have to offer.
An account that follows you but doesn’t engage with you can lower your engagement rate, and you should rather have 10 followers that are mostly engaged, potential leads for your product or service than 1,000 followers with only seven who actively engage.
Note: This is easier to do the smaller your account is. If you have purchased a large amount of followers in the past, you may want to consider opening a new account to start fresh.

How to recognize which followers to remove:

You want to be protective of your brand by getting rid of spam accounts, fake followers and inactive followers.

Of course, investigate where you can, but typically an unwanted follower checks a few of these boxes:

No profile photo
Handle is made of several random numbers, letters, and symbols
No posts
Very generic comments
Follows thousands of accounts (with little to no followers themselves)

And just as you want to remove toxic followers, make sure you unfollow any accounts that simply don’t serve you, because 2024 is your year and you don’t need any account distracting you from your goals.

For additional help resetting your Instagram account for the new year, download my FREE Five-Day Reels Challenge to access five days of prompts, audio suggestions, and tips to support a consistent start to your year.