Social Media

How to do a Social Media Audit

It is important that social media be kept up to date. Yes, you want to make sure all of your profile information like your business address and logo, but there are other things that must be continually audited and updated in the social media world as well. 

A professional social media audit is when the owner or manager of a social media page determines what’s working, what isn’t, and what can be improved. Social media audits should be performed at least every six months, and ideally every month, if you have the time. Conducting a social media audit is a huge part of developing or updating your effective social media marketing plan, making sure you aren’t missing opportunities online, and ensuring that you’re representing your brand appropriately. Before you can think strategically about your business’s social media use, you need to document and evaluate your existing efforts. After all, how else will you know if your strategy is (or isn’t) working?

Auditing the performance and results of your social media activity and social media marketing give insights on your brand’s influence and and reach. Don’t worry – a social media audit can be very easy. It is detailed and in depth, but not hard at all. 

Step One: Schedule It

If you wait until your social media profiles are struggling or outright failing, you have missed the mark! Instead of waiting for an emergency to force your hand at a social media audit, perform them proactively, at least twice per year. At best, it will reassure you that everything you are doing is working. At worst, it will create a simple and actionable list of what you must do to improve. It’s just like going to get a check-up at the doctor’s office – you don’t want to wait until you’re already sick! Go get a check up twice a year to be proactive. It is the same with social media. 

Step Two: Create a Guide / To-Do List

Decide what your non-negotiables are for this social media audit and write them down. Do you want to make sure every profile or channel has a vanity URL? Do you want to start the process of getting your accounts verified? Do you plan to update all of your social media bios or profile photos or check that there is not any information missing from your profiles? Whatever your goals for the audit are, write them all down so you don’t’ forget anything once you get started. 

Step Three: Determine Which Social Media Profiles You Will Audit

You’ll want to take a note of which social media profiles you are going to audit. Yes, you should include social media profiles or channels that you have abandoned or used in the distant past! Look for any channels or profiles that someone else at your business created that you did not know about. You can also see if someone else is using your usernames, this way. 

Step Four: Analyze Each Profile

This is the fun part. During profile analyzation, you will want to check, for each profile: page optimization, cover and profile image, visual assets, video optimization, frequency of posts and time of posts, content types, comment sentiment and response time, live video usage, client engagement, branding, optimization, ease of access to your website, and chatbots / messenger use. Remember to refer back to your guide/to do list during this part of the process. 

Step Five: Look Deeper Into Customer Interactions

Your communication with clients on social media is hugely important – possibly more important than the content you post daily. It shows them that you care about them specifically, and that leads to sales. Let’s look at what you should be checking for when you audit your customer interactions on social media: Are your messages copy-and-paste robotic and impersonal, or are they unique to every person? 

Step Six: Competitive Social Media Review

Break away from your own social medias to review the social medias of your competitors or of like brand names or those who sell similar services or products. Check your social medias against theirs one to one – your Facebook against their Facebook, your Instagram against their Instagram, your Twitter against their Twitter, etc. Look at their publishing trends compared to yours, their frequency of posting and number of likes on each post, what types of content they post, which influencers they promote, and how much customer engagement they get. 

Step Seven: Identify Best Performing Posts

Looking for and determining which posts on your social media have performed the best helps educate you on what type of content your clients and viewers respond well to. People engage with what they like or what makes them think. If your posts aren’t engaging your followers, something needs to change. If you choose, you can categorize different types of post performances, such as your best performing videos, your best performing images, or your best performing text posts. Afterwards, you’ll have a clear idea of what works for your social media channels. It may be different on different profiles! What works on your Facebook may not work on your Pinterest. 

Step Eight: Identify Most Shared Content

This is extremely similar sounding to the previous step, but is actually very important and worth it’s own designation. You can use social media tools to find your business’s most shared posts on each social media profile. Look at your top ten most shared posts since your last social media audit. What were they about? What media form were they in? What was the topic? Answering these questions helps you understand what type of content your audience shares and enjoys the most, so you can make more content just like it. 

Step Nine: Check Your Branding 

Your brand is your business’s finger print. It is unique and specially personalized to just you, so you want to be sure that you are using it correctly. Your brand should be immediately recognizable as well as consistent over time. If your Twitter is nothing like your Facebook in terms of photos, logos, colors, or theme, your clients will get confused – and might wonder if they are looking at social media profiles for two different companies. If your brand has style guidelines, make sure that every single post and all aspects of your profile follow them. If you notice any inconsistencies, correct them. 

Step Ten: Re-Define Your Audience

Wait, haven’t you already done this? Probably, but you need to do it again. Identify a target audience for your social media – and not just “the same people who buy my product or service”. When you first created your social media you had a great idea of who you wanted to interact with your posts. Look now – are those the people who are interacting with them now? Did you meet that goal? If not, you must identify what steps you want to take to aim your future content and social media posts at the correct audience. Compare your audiences across all platforms as well. You should have the same type of following on Facebook as you do on Twitter. 

Step Eleven: Check For New Useful Social Media Platforms

The internet is constantly expanding. You never know if there is a new social media platform that your brand could go viral on. This doesn’t mean to make a profile on every website you hear about, but you must at least be aware of your options and go through with the websites that serve your brand and your goals the best. Being attached to the classics (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) is okay, but could you get a million followers on TikTok? What about Snapchat? Your product or service could be best serviced on smaller social media platforms. You never know. It’s worth a check. 

Step Twelve: Calculate Monthly ROI

Almost done. Your social media ROI is quite important and it’s different than regular ROI. When 60% of brands struggle to keep on top of their social media ROI, they end up spending money and time on “fixes” and “solutions” that aren’t right, and don’t deliver their brand any value. Monitoring your social media ROI should be a priority for this reason. 

Step Thirteen: Create New Goals

Now you have a ton of data in front of you. You know which type of social media posts your audience reacts to the best. You know if your branding is great across all of your profiles or if you have some clean up to do. You know if you need to get a better chatbot for more personalized social media messenger responses. Take all of this data and put it to use. When you complete all the tasks on your new to-do list, how much do you want to have improved by the next social media audit? How many likes per post do you wish to grow to? How many shares per type of content? How many followers?

Step Fourteen: Enjoy a Job Well Done! 

You’ve completed your social media audit. Congratulations! Now set a calendar event for your next one.