How to Analyze Instagram Competitors

Despite the rise of various new social apps over the last few years, good old Instagram remains one of the most widely used platforms for brands; therefore, it remains a competitive space. If brands want to stay ahead of the competition, they need to know who their competitors are, what they're doing and why they perform better (or worse) than their own brand. This means finding content gaps and refining their Instagram strategy accordingly, and this starts with a competitive analysis.

In this blog, we'll walk through the key steps to analyze Instagram competitors effectively and which metrics you should pay attention to.

An Instagram competitive analysis is the process of gathering data and insights on your competitors’ presence on Instagram. Posting cadence, content formats, visual style and general behavior are a few of the elements you can examine to better inform your content strategy going forward. 

A competitive analysis helps you understand what your rivals are doing, what works for them and where they might fall short. It’s a way to benchmark your performance, spark content ideas and make smarter, more strategic decisions to stay ahead.

Identifying your competitors on Instagram should be fairly easy if you have a good handle on your brand identity and industry outside of social media.  For the competitors you have identified outside of Instagram, it’s just a matter of finding their accounts, which are almost always going to be linked on their website if you can’t find them directly in search. 

If the goal is to find a whole new set of competitors, you can do a couple of things. Track the relevant Instagram hashtags and topics to your brand and note what brands are showing up within the feed. Don’t be afraid to get as granular in your research as possible. By this, we mean it’s okay to search specific hashtags or products instead of product categories. If you’re a skincare brand launching a new product, don’t feel like you have to stick to standard skincare competition. As a result, you’ll be unlocking new competition and may even find yourself inspired by what you see.  

Analyzing your Instagram competition is important for refining your own strategy and identifying content gaps. Gathering competitive data can be time-consuming and leave you with a pile of data that doesn’t have any obvious action items or steps forward. Evaluating this data strategically provides the insights you need to make a real impact in your marketing goals and social media strategy.

Here are some additional reasons brands should practice Instagram competitive analysis:

• To help establish social media KPIs
• To discover industry benchmarks
• To improve overall content strategy

Conducting an Instagram competitive analysis helps you understand what’s working for others in your industry and how you can improve your own Instagram marketing strategy based on your findings. By tracking and comparing your brand to key competitors, you discover content trends, engagement tactics and posting strategies that resonate with your shared audience. 

It’s important to note that a competitive analysis isn’t about copying others, it’s about learning, adapting and finding opportunities to meet your goals and differentiate yourself from the competition. 

Here’s the Instagram competitive analysis process broken down, step-by-step: 

1. Identify Your Instagram Competitors

The first step in competitive analysis is to segment your social audience and identify who you are up against, including both direct and indirect competitors. But how do you find your competitors on Instagram? There are two main types of competitors to identify before you start parsing through the data. 

Direct competitors are brands that offer similar products or services to the same target audience. For example, a vegan beauty brand’s direct competitors would include other vegan beauty or skincare companies, especially those targeting the same geographic location or a similar age group. The quickest way to find these competitors is to search for keywords and hashtags related to your niche market on Instagram. Though we’re sure you already know who they are. 

Indirect competitors may not sell the same products as you, but they compete for your audience’s attention. They may include lifestyle brands, alternative products within the same industry or businesses with similar values and aesthetics. For instance, Cocokind (a conscious skincare brand) and Summer Fridays (an influencer-founded skincare line focused on simplicity and effectiveness) can be considered indirect competitors to a vegan skincare brand. Both brands, attract a similar audience interested in clean beauty and skincare trends. Instagram’s “Suggested for You” and “Suggested Accounts” features can also help identify these types of competitors.

2. Evaluate Their Instagram Profile and Gather Performance Data

A competitor’s Instagram profile is the first impression they make on their audience. Analyzing their profiles’ key elements can provide insights into your competitor’s positioning and strategy:

• Username and bio: How do they present themselves? What keywords or value propositions do they highlight?
• Profile picture: Does it reflect their brand identity? Are they using a logo, founder’s headshot or campaign-specific graphic?
• Link in bio: Are they using a link in bio tool like LikeShop to sell on Instagram or drive traffic to a specific landing page?

Once you’ve reviewed their profile, the next step is to benchmark competitors and gather performance data. You can manually track this in an Excel spreadsheet or save time by using our Instagram Competitive Analysis Template.  

Dash Social’s Competitive Insights and Benchmarking tool also makes it easy to select the relevant social channel. It automatically collects and displays the comparison data, making it easy to benchmark your brand against both individual competitors and broader industry averages.

3. Analyze Competitor Posts 

A thorough Instagram competitive analysis should include both quantitative and qualitative insights. After collecting and analyzing their performance data, examine your competitors’ Instagram feeds to understand which content strategies are driving engagement.

Consider these key questions:

• Content format: Are they posting reels, carousels, stories or static images? Do they use interactive Story features like polls, Q&As and stickers?
• Text overlays: Do posts with text overlays achieve higher engagement?
• Product presentation: Are single-product shots performing better than grouped ones? Do modeled posts outperform flat-lay images?
• Branding and aesthetics: Are they consistent with certain colors, themes and overall aesthetics?
• Instagram hashtag strategy: Are they using a mix of popular and niche hashtags? Do they have branded hashtags for their campaigns? How do they integrate keywords and hashtags into their captions?
• Captions and calls-to-action (CTAs): Do they use storytelling, emojis or direct calls to action? Do they encourage audience interaction with calls to action?   
• Social media tools: Which Instagram tools does it seem like competitors are prioritizing in their tech stack to make the most of their Instagram presence?

If you’re a Dash Social user, you can streamline this process by creating a Dashboard to quickly identify your competitors’ top-performing and lowest-performing posts on Instagram. For deeper visual analysis, use Visual IQ to explore competitor content by groups, with AI-powered trend insights that reveal emerging patterns and creative strategies.

4. Monitor the Competitive Landscape With Social Listening

Instagram competitive analysis goes far beyond tracking content and metrics; it also means staying attuned to industry shifts and audience sentiment. Social listening enables you to monitor conversations, brand mentions and trending topics on Instagram, with real-time insights into both competitor strategies and customer preferences.

With Dash Social’s Social Listening AI, you can go even deeper. Users can track keywords, Instagram hashtags and topics, but also emerging visual trends across social media and receive instant alerts to stay updated on what matters most to your audience and how your competitors are adapting on Instagram. By staying informed in real time, you can proactively adjust your strategy and stay ahead in a constantly evolving market.

When analyzing competitors on Instagram, focusing on the right metrics is crucial for gaining valuable insights and making informed strategic decisions. Here are a few different Instagram metrics you can monitor and compare to identify opportunities for differentiation and stay ahead in a competitive landscape:

Average Engagement Rate

Engagement rate on Instagram measures how actively your audience interacts with your content relative to the follower count. A high engagement rate often indicates strong audience interest, brand loyalty, and content effectiveness.

How is it calculated? Engagement rate = (Likes + Comments) / Followers

Why should I use it? Benchmarking your engagement rate against competitors on Instagram provides valuable context, helping you determine whether your brand is effectively resonating with your audience or if industry standards are simply higher or lower. Dash Social users can leverage Boards to analyze competitor content and identify the strategies driving the highest engagement. Contact your Account Manager for complementary training sessions and more details.

Number of Posts

Posting frequency helps you track competitors and determine how often you should post on Instagram. Consistent posting helps maintain audience engagement, increases visibility and strengthen your brand’s online presence.

How is it calculated? Number of Posts = the amount of posts that you have on your account in total, or in a given time period.

Why should you use it? Comparing Instagram posting frequency with competitors helps determine whether you are posting enough content to stay competitive. If competitors post more frequently and see higher engagement, increasing your posting cadence may improve reach and interaction. However, quality should always be prioritized over quantity. If you’re a Dash user, you can access the ‘Competitor Overview’ section to benchmark your Number of Posts against the industry standards and competitors.

Follower Growth Rate

Follower Growth Rate measures how quickly your audience is expanding over time. A steady increase in followers indicates growing brand awareness, audience interest and an overall successful social media strategy.

How is it calculated? Follower Growth Rate = (New Followers - Old Followers) / Old Followers × 100%

Why should you use it? Tracking your growth rate against competitors helps assess whether your brand is scaling at a competitive pace. If competitors are growing faster, analyzing their strategies, like content types, social media trends or posting frequency, can help you refine your approach. Dash Social users can use the Visual IQ feature to identify trending industry visuals and leverage the AI-powered Vision tool to analyze competitor content that resonates with similar audiences. 

Other Benchmarking Metrics

These metrics are also valuable for competitor analysis and can be easily tracked and measured in Dash Social with just a few clicks:

• Engagements 
• Total and net new followers 
• Average reach 
• Likes
• Comments 
• Average effectiveness rate

Ultimately, Instagram remains a core platform for visibility and engagement, which makes understanding the competition crucial for growth. A strategic Instagram competitive analysis helps brands pinpoint opportunities, refine their content strategy and stay ahead in a crowded space. Here are more takeaways to keep in mind: 

• Identify direct and indirect competitors using keywords, hashtags and Instagram’s suggested accounts.
• Evaluate competitors’ profiles to understand their positioning, branding and link-in-bio strategies.
• Analyze Instagram post formats, captions, hashtags and engagement patterns to find high-performing content trends.
• Use Social Listening Trends and Topics to track brand mentions, social trends and audience sentiment in real time.
• Benchmark Instagram performance using metrics like engagement rate, follower growth and posting frequency.‍
• Dash Social’s social media tools streamline analysis with features like Competitive Insights, Visual IQ and Social Listening.

How do you see the Instagram ads of competitors?

The easiest way to view a competitor’s active Instagram ads is through Meta’s Ad Library. This public tool lets you search any brand page and see the creatives, copy and formats they’re currently running. While you won’t see targeting details, you can get a clear sense of messaging, offers and visual trends they’re prioritizing. Regular checks can reveal shifts in strategy, seasonal promotions and even A/B testing tactics.

How can you target competitors on Instagram?

Directly targeting competitor accounts isn’t possible through Instagram Ads, but you can get strategic. Focus on targeting users by interests, behaviors and hashtags aligned with your competitors' niche. You can also target lookalike audiences based on your own high-value followers or customers, many of whom likely follow your competitors too. Using this approach helps you reach relevant users without violating ad guidelines.

How do you target your competitors’ audience on Instagram?

To reach your competitors’ audience, start by understanding who they are: what content they engage with, what influencers they follow and what hashtags they use. Build custom and lookalike audiences in Meta Ads Manager (or Dash Social) using these insights, combined with interest and behavior-based targeting. You can also create content that appeals directly to gaps in your competitors’ messaging, positioning your brand as the better alternative.