How to do Instagram competitor analysis
In short: Track each rival’s Instagram followers, posting activity, top posts and engagement per post, then read what changed. Instagram’s own Competitive Insights covers the basics for your account. Spiderlook scans every rival’s profile daily and links each signal to the posts behind it.
What is Instagram competitor analysis?
Instagram competitor analysis is tracking rival brands’ Instagram profiles to learn what they post, how often, and what their audience responds to. It answers three questions: who is growing, what content works for them, and what they are launching next.
What should you track on a competitor’s Instagram?
Keep the list short and the same for every rival:
- Followers and how fast they grow
- Posting activity: how many posts, Reels and carousels went out since the last check
- Top posts: the posts with the strongest response
- Engagement per post, so accounts of different sizes compare fairly
- Themes, hooks and formats that keep coming back
- Campaigns: a new product, launch or message pushed across several posts at once
How do you analyze Instagram competitors by hand?
Start with Instagram’s own tool. Competitive Insights in the Professional Dashboard lets business and creator accounts pick a set of accounts and compare follower growth and posting frequency side by side, with a look at individual competitor posts.
Then fill the gaps in a spreadsheet. Open each rival’s grid, log followers and new posts, sort what you see by response, and note the themes and formats. Repeat on a fixed schedule so the numbers mean something.
Where does the manual method fall short?
Competitive Insights compares accounts one against one inside your own login, and it stays on Instagram. The spreadsheet only holds what you copied, so the post behind a spike is gone by the time someone asks about it. And the work grows with every rival you add.
How does Spiderlook track competitors on Instagram?
Spiderlook scans each rival’s Instagram profile every day. Add the rival’s website and confirm the Instagram profile Spiderlook finds there, or paste the profile URL.
Each scan collects followers, posting activity, top posts and engagement per post. The results show up in:
- Activity: the new posts from every rival’s profile
- Signals: meaningful shifts, such as a jump in posting activity or a new campaign appearing on Instagram, LinkedIn and paid ads at once
- The rival’s Social tab: followers, posting and top posts for the profile
Focus chips set the themes that matter for each rival, and every signal links to the posts that triggered it.
How do you compare Instagram with a rival’s other channels?
Add the rest of the rival’s sources: TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, X, its website, Meta ads and Google ads. Spiderlook connects related activity, so a launch that runs on Instagram and in Meta ads reads as one campaign, not two scattered facts.
Can you ask ChatGPT or Claude about a rival’s Instagram?
Yes. Ask Spidey answers inside Spiderlook with the posts attached. Through Spiderlook’s MCP server you can ask the same questions in ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Cursor, Notion, PostHog and any other client that supports MCP.
Where to go next
FAQ
You can see everything a rival makes public: followers, posts, likes and comments. Spiderlook collects those every day and turns them into followers, posting activity, top posts and engagement per post for each rival.