ig-audit
The only honest source of what works for an account is that account. Every rule in every Instagram guide, including the ones in this pack, is a prior. The user's own last 30 posts are the evidence.
Input
Ask for whichever the user has:
- Insights per post: views, reach, interactions, watch time, saves, shares, follows, skip rate, and the non-follower share of reach. Screenshots are fine.
- Or the retention graph for their best and worst recent reels. This one screenshot is worth more than the rest combined.
- Or just the posts and their view counts, which is enough for a first pass.
Also read ~/.claude/instagram/log.md if it exists, since it records which
hook formula each post used.
What to actually measure
Raw views is the least useful number on the page, because it is mostly a function of how many people already follow the account. Compute these instead and show the working:
| metric | how | what it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Outlier multiple | views / the account's own median views | whether this was a real hit or a normal day |
| Non-follower reach | % of reach from people who do not follow | whether it travelled at all |
| Skip rate | straight from a reel's insights: the share of views that skipped in the first 3 seconds. Hold at 3s is 100 minus it. | whether the hook worked. This is the hook's grade, and lower is better. |
| Average watch time | straight from insights | whether the middle worked |
| Sends per reach | shares / reach | the strongest single signal you can earn. A send is a person putting their name on it. |
| Follows per reach | follows / reach | whether the profile converted the attention |
Rank by outlier multiple and sends per reach, not views. A reel with 4,000 views and 90 sends beat the one with 60,000 views and 11.
Skip rate is Meta's own number: the
Instagram Media Insights reference
defines reels_skip_rate as "the percentage of views from people who skipped
during the first 3 seconds of the reel", for Reels only, and marks it as
estimated and still in development. Treat it as an estimate. If the user's
insights do not show it, read hold at 3 seconds off the retention graph
instead.
Then find the pattern
With the top five and bottom five side by side, look for what separates them, and be willing to conclude something the user will not like:
- Skip rate. If the top and bottom differ here, it is the hook and nothing else, and everything downstream is a distraction.
- Hook formula. Which ids from
ig-reel/hooks.jsonare in the top five? - Format. Reel, carousel, single image.
- Length. Group into under 15s, 15 to 30s, 30 to 60s, over 60s.
- Theme.
- Whether the user replied to comments in the first hour.
- Day and time. Check this last and only if the others show nothing. It is almost never the cause and it is where people want it to be.
State the finding as a claim with the evidence attached, and say how confident it is. With 30 posts you can see a pattern. With 6 you cannot, and saying so is better than inventing one.
The distinction that saves people months
A reel that gets views and no follows is not a failed reel, it is a profile
problem. A reel that gets no views is a hook problem. Separate the two before
recommending anything. If non-follower reach is high and follows per reach is
low, stop rewriting hooks and go to /ig-profile.
Output
AUDIT · 31 posts · Jun 12 - Sep 5 · median views 4,100
TOP 5 BY OUTLIER MULTIPLE
18.2x #3 Nobody Tells You 74,600 views 62% non-follower skip 29% 128 sends
6.4x #1 Cost Confession 26,300 views 48% non-follower skip 36% 71 sends
...
BOTTOM 5
0.3x #11 Numbered 1,200 views 9% non-follower skip 69% 2 sends
...
WHAT THE DATA SAYS
1. Skip rate is the whole story. Top five average 34%, bottom five 67%.
Everything else you are worried about is downstream of the first two seconds.
2. The posts where you were the one who looked bad: mean 8.1x vs 0.9x for
everything else. n=5. Strongest signal here and it is not close.
3. Tool listicles get views and nothing else. High reach, no sends, no follows.
Three of your bottom five.
4. Day of week shows nothing. Your Tuesday and Friday means are inside the
noise. Stop optimising it.
STOP: listicles.
DO MORE: the ones with a cost you paid and a number attached.
Then hand the conclusions to /ig-plan so next week is built on the user's own
evidence rather than on defaults, and to /ig-viral so the swipe file gets
filtered to the formulas that work for this account specifically.