Social media is a dynamic and competitive space where you need to constantly monitor and improve your performance. But how do you identify and prioritize the most important gaps and opportunities for your brand? In this article, you will learn a simple and effective framework to conduct a social media audit and create an action plan based on your goals, audience, and competitors.
A social media audit is a systematic and comprehensive analysis of your current social media presence, performance, and alignment with your business objectives. It helps you to evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) across different platforms, channels, and content types. A social media audit also helps you to benchmark your results against your competitors and industry standards, and identify best practices and areas for improvement.
Think of a social media audit as your starting line. Without an audit, you don't know where to start, thus you can never 'win the race'. You need data to track to see improvement. An audit is a snapshot of the now, a line in the sand. From that we can gather the following: Here is where we are. Here is where we need to go. Here is where we can improve!
Prioritizing your social media needs is like judging a cooking competition - you must thoughtfully rate each dish. List out platform, content, engagement and reach gaps alongside strengths. Score each on potential impact and effort required. Consider tactical opportunities for innovation and improvement. Qualitatively evaluate against goals and audience needs. With careful deliberation you can rank focus areas to guide your social recipe reinvention. Now put on your chef hat, sample each element and let’s decide what to serve up next!
Enhancing your social media strategy is akin to appraising a cooking competition - meticulously assessing every dish. Identify the platforms, content, engagement, and reach gaps, while acknowledging their respective strengths. Assign scores based on potential impact and the effort needed for each aspect. Explore tactical opportunities for innovation and improvement. Conduct a qualitative evaluation aligning with your goals and audience preferences. Through thoughtful deliberation, you can prioritize focus areas to steer your social recipe reinvention. Now, don your chef hat, savor each element, and determine what to serve up next!
My experience in SWOT that I have found helpful. Ideas and strategies should be gaged by whether or not they add value to the user. I find this is the fastest way to analyze usefulness, getting from point A to B, while maintaining profitability in compliance with your Vision & Mission Statement. Social media space. Don't get mired down in fine line art. While that looks great, honestly there is no time available for explict detailing. The information or engagement you are selling, key word here, it is NOT a presentation, matters more than eye popping graphics. Get to why people engage with you ASAP. Stick to the basics. After all, no one asks the car dealer if they can just purchase the exterior paint separately.
Before you start your social media audit, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve and how you will measure your success. You need to define your SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound) for each social media platform and channel. You also need to identify your target audience, their demographics, preferences, pain points, and behaviors. Finally, you need to select your main competitors and research their social media strategies, tactics, and results.
Much like a financial audit, to prepare for a social media audit you need to gather all your 'social media places' into one document. Don't forget that Google Search - you might have old, dormant accounts sitting under your name. An audit should reveal all the places you are mentioned, and have or had an online presence!
Just like a financial audit, preparing for a social media audit requires consolidating all your 'social media spots' into a single document. Remember to include Google Search results as well, as you might have old, inactive accounts associated with your name. The audit aims to uncover every mention of your brand and any past or present online presence you've had.
I find no need for the above. This off tact comes from a 40+ year career in the Music Business. Which, if you are a Musical Artist, the correct term and wording is: This Business of Music. Don't get it twisted. You built a stellar career that was highly profitable, by being "You". Does this question seem strange? "So you signed with Record Label XYZ because you felt they needed your help, were under capitalized, and provided an inferior solution to get you to Rock Star status over a longer timeline with a lot less pay?" The correct answer is no. You shopped for a label that produced results fast for You. Don't deviate from Your Original Intent. The main reason you are successful is you charted your own destiny. Vision. Git Sum.
The next step is to collect and analyze data from your own and your competitors' social media accounts. You can use various tools and methods to gather quantitative and qualitative information, such as analytics dashboards, surveys, interviews, social listening, and content audits. You should focus on key metrics and indicators that relate to your goals, such as reach, engagement, conversion, retention, and loyalty. You should also look for patterns, trends, gaps, and opportunities in your content, tone, style, frequency, timing, and distribution.
No - wrong answer! ^^^ you are confusing a social media audit with a competitor's analysis! FIRST, you complete the social media audit and analyze your own data. THEN you use that same data and add that to another sheet where you will also gather your competitor's data to complete a competitor's analysis. Two different documents!
A social media audit can be powerful if done correctly. It is more easy to do effectively internally if individuals have the knowledge. Externally, it can be very hit or miss. If you look at external resources to do your social media audit, those individuals must understand what you do before beginning or signing a contract. I have seen attractive and polished SWOT analysis that miss the mark because the agency didn't understand what you did in the first place. They must understand who your industry peers are before starting. Otherwise it can be a waste of financial resources for communications, which is a department that generally does not have many resources to begin with.
A well-conducted social media audit holds immense power. When done internally, it's more manageable and effective with adequate knowledge. Outsourcing can be hit or miss. External resources must grasp your business before starting. Understanding your industry peers is also essential. Otherwise, it could squander resources, especially for communications departments.
We do not look in the rear view mirror to steer, hoping to remember how the road ahead lies. No matter how much data or analytics you have access to, you have to remember all of that is now yesterday's Out of Date competitor news. How do you know, (or not know) whether the acquired dataset is actually complete and truthful? The real answer now, and forever in your future is, you don't, and unless you buy the competition out you can pretty much heavily discount all of the above-mentioned items. I find that rather than going thru your competitors dumpster of information, I make carefully compiled assessments of our own social media platform's Strengths and Weaknesses, then devise a plan to address concerns that come from interna audit.
After you have completed your social media audit, you should have a clear picture of where you stand and where you want to go. The next step is to prioritize the most important and urgent gaps and opportunities for your brand. You can use a simple matrix to rank your findings based on two criteria: impact and effort. Impact refers to how much value or benefit a gap or opportunity can bring to your brand, while effort refers to how much time, money, or resources it will take to address it. You can then categorize your findings into four quadrants: quick wins, major projects, fill-ins, and thankless tasks.
Gaps and opportunities gained from a social media audit will include social media platforms to be active on, SEO updates you can make, and frequency of posting, just to name a few things. Gaps and opportunities gained from a competitor's analysis will include missed opportunities, inspiration, new ideas for growth, and how to outrank, outpace, and outperform your competitors. Both are based (and limited) on your budget, your audience, and your goals.
A social media audit uncovers valuable gaps and opportunities, such as identifying the ideal platforms to be active on, suggesting SEO updates, and optimizing posting frequency. Simultaneously, a competitor's analysis reveals missed chances, provides inspiration, and offers fresh growth ideas, empowering you to outperform your rivals in rankings and performance. Both assessments are tailored to your budget, audience, and goals, providing invaluable insights for strategic decision-making.
Assess the gaps where our social media efforts are falling short of expectations or where potential opportunities lie untapped. This involves understanding the needs and desires of our target audience, as well as identifying areas where our competitors may be outperforming us or where emerging platforms or features can be leveraged. Once the gaps and opportunities are identified, prioritize them based on their potential impact, feasibility, and alignment with overall business objectives. This helps me determine which areas require immediate attention and which can be addressed in the long term. Ultimately, the goal is to create a strategic SM plan that focuses on closing the identified gaps and maximizing the identified opportunities.
The final step is to create a social media action plan that outlines the specific actions, responsibilities, timelines, and budgets for each gap or opportunity. You should start with the quick wins, which are the low-effort and high-impact items that can generate immediate results. Then, you should move on to the major projects, which are the high-effort and high-impact items that require more planning and resources. You should also consider the fill-ins, which are the low-effort and low-impact items that can fill the gaps in your strategy. You should avoid or delegate the thankless tasks, which are the high-effort and low-impact items that offer little value or return.
An action plan is a great first step, but don't stop there! Your social media action plan is like a trusty GPS, guiding you with specific steps for jaw-dropping results. It's the "what" of your social communications. Zooming out, use an overall strategy to drive the "why." Strategy is the master plan tying everything together, guiding you to major projects and high-impact endeavors. Now, the tactics are the clever ways you implement the strategy — the concrete steps for "how" you put your action plan into action! An action plan, strategy, and tactics, each play a vital role in your journey to addressing gaps and prioritizing opportunities on social media.
Having an action plan is an excellent starting point, but it's essential to keep going! Think of your social media action plan as a reliable GPS, providing clear steps to achieve impressive results. It's all about the "what" of your social communications. To gain a broader perspective, employ an overarching strategy that drives the "why" behind your efforts. This strategy serves as the master plan, connecting all elements and guiding you toward major projects and high-impact initiatives. Now, the tactics come into play; they are the ingenious ways you implement the strategy, providing concrete steps for bringing your action plan to life!
Once you have implemented your social media action plan, you need to monitor and evaluate its effectiveness and efficiency. You need to track and measure your progress and performance against your goals and metrics, and adjust your actions accordingly. You also need to collect feedback from your audience, stakeholders, and team members, and learn from your successes and failures. You should conduct regular social media audits to keep up with the changes and challenges in the social media landscape, and to identify new gaps and opportunities for your brand.
Social media moves so quickly that you should be reevaluating your strategy every quarter. Track your performance against your goals and ask yourself the following questions: 1. Did we meet or exceed our KPIs? Why or why not? 2. What goals do we plan to achieve next quarter? 3. How has our business changed in the last quarter, and how should that impact our social media strategy? 4. How has social media changed in the last 3 months, and how should we adapt accordingly? 5. What are we not doing today that we should try? 6. What are we doing today that we should stop doing? 7. What resources do we need to accomplish our goals? Taking time to reflect on your tactics and goals will help level set your strategy on a consistent basis.
Consider the feasibility of executing any recommendations based on the understanding of management and leadership in an organization. If managers or leadership does not have basic comprehension of social media channels, a social media audit won't be quite effective. A social media audit should include ensuring management is on board, and understands the basics of social media, before engaging in an audit.
Fact: not everyone likes social media, LinkedIn included, or routinely uses it. They are googling or using other social media for their own personal reasons. How can you overcome that "gap?" Send blog posts to your twitter handle, Facebook biz page, LinkedIn personal and company URLs--all your social media presences. Every so often spotlight one social media location on the others. Rotate. Cross-reference. Reshare from one to the other. It takes work, but eventually your readers will recognize and congregate on the social media location that serves them best and you win. My blog pieces simultaneously publish to all my social media and I accumulate readers in all places for various reaosn that work for them, allr eading the same material.
Before proceeding with any recommendations, it's vital to assess their feasibility within the organization's management and leadership framework. If managers or leaders lack a fundamental understanding of social media channels, a social media audit may not yield the desired results. To ensure the effectiveness of the audit, it becomes essential to have management on board and equipped with a basic understanding of social media before initiating the process.