How can you use third-party data for your social media audit?

1 What is third-party data?

Third-party data is any information that is collected by an entity that is not directly involved in the interaction with the user. For example, third-party data can include demographic, psychographic, behavioral, and interest data from platforms like Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, or other social media tools. Third-party data can provide you with valuable insights into your audience, competitors, industry trends, and best practices that you may not be able to obtain from your own data.

2 How to access third-party data?

There are different ways to access third-party data for your social media audit, depending on your needs and budget. For instance, you can use free or paid social media analytics tools that offer third-party data integration, such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Buffer, or Socialbakers. These tools can help you monitor, measure, and optimize your social media activities across multiple channels and platforms, as well as compare your performance with competitors and industry benchmarks. Alternatively, you can subscribe to third-party data providers or platforms that specialize in collecting, aggregating, and analyzing data from various sources, such as Nielsen, Comscore, SimilarWeb, or Statista. These providers can offer more granular and comprehensive data on your audience, market, and industry. Additionally, you can conduct online surveys, polls, quizzes, or contests that ask your audience for feedback; however, you must ensure that you follow the ethical and legal guidelines for data collection and protection.

3 How to use third-party data for your social media audit?

Accessing third-party data can be used for various purposes in a social media audit. For example, it can help identify the target audience and persona, evaluate performance and ROI, benchmark performance against competitors and industry standards, and identify gaps and opportunities in the social media strategy. It can also be used to understand the needs and preferences of customers, measure success against goals and objectives, compare performance with competitors, and explore new ideas and tactics. This data can help create or refine a buyer persona, calculate ROI, identify competitive advantages and disadvantages, set realistic goals, spot weaknesses in the strategy, and reach new audiences.

4 How to analyze and interpret third-party data for your social media audit?

Accessing third-party data is not enough for your social media audit. You also need to analyze and interpret the data to extract meaningful and actionable insights that can help you improve your social media strategy. To do this, you should define your key performance indicators (KPIs) and use data visualization tools such as Google Data Studio, Tableau, Power BI, or Infogram. Additionally, apply data analysis techniques like correlation, regression, segmentation, or sentiment analysis to answer questions, test hypotheses, or make predictions. Finally, draw conclusions and recommendations that prioritize and rank your suggestions based on their urgency, feasibility, and impact.

5 How to report and present your social media audit findings?

The final step in your social media audit is to report and present your findings to your stakeholders. To communicate your findings effectively, you should use a social media audit template to organize and structure your data. Additionally, you should highlight the key takeaways and action items from your analysis. Lastly, storytelling and storytelling techniques can make your findings more memorable, relatable, and impactful. By using these tips to report and present your social media audit findings, you can demonstrate the value and benefits of your audit and inspire stakeholders to take action.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?