In today's world, it's not enough for businesses to simply have a Facebook page and tweet occasionally--successful companies are using social media as an integral part of their marketing plans.
But with so many platforms available, it can be difficult to figure out where to start. That's where a social media audit comes in handy. By assessing your current activity and comparing it against your competition, you can get a clear picture of what needs improvement.
Keep reading for our complete guide on conducting a successful social media audit!
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Social Media Audit: 5 Easy Steps
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What Is a Social Media Audit?
As any business owner knows, social media is a great way to connect with potential and current customers. However, simply having a social media presence is not enough--you need to have an effective social media strategy in place in order to maximize your impact.
A social media audit can help you to assess your current social media strategy and identify areas that could be improved. The audit will take into account factors such as the frequency of your social media posts, the engagement level of your social media audience, and the effectiveness of your overall branding.
Once the audit is complete, you'll have a clear idea of what changes need to be made in order to improve your social strategy.
Overall, conducting a social media audit is a valuable way to assess your online presence and make sure that you're putting your best foot forward.
How Do You Conduct a Social Media Audit?
There are a few different ways that you can conduct a social media audit. You can do it yourself, hire someone to do it for you, or use a social media management tool.
If you decide to do it yourself, here are a few steps that you can follow:
1. List Down All Your Existing Social Media Accounts
Creating a list of all the social media network created for your brand is the very first step you need to do. This is especially important if multiple people have handled your social accounts in the past.
The main purpose of listing these accounts down is to ensure that you control all social media profiles of your brand. Fake pages as well as fan-made ones are not uncommon, so you might want to make sure that your brand is well-represented in the social network.
There are many ways you can search for your company’s social channels. You can:
Review Your Company’s Marketing Strategy History
Since social media marketing is not so new, there might be social media pages created in the past that represent your brand. A Facebook page and an Instagram account are the more popular ones, so you might want to look for those first.
Or, you may as well use TikTok marketing strategy to run your campaign as more people are connected to this platform than ever. Content like dance challenges and product reviews from micro-influencers can help you land on TikTok's For You Page. Hence, increasing your chance of getting more customers.
Search the Web
The most popular type of research nowadays, sometimes called “Googling it,” is by searching the internet for any of your brand’s online presence. By searching your company name, you can find out the different social profiles your brand has online.
You can also do a direct search in all your platforms to check which ones your brand has an existing account with. Aside from Facebook and Instagram, the other popular ones are Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Pinterest, and TikTok, among others.
2. Review Your Social Media Accounts
Once all your social accounts are accounted for, it's time to review them one at a time. But first, it's important that you gain access and take control of them. Once in control, you can then start your review.
What are the things you need to consider in reviewing your social media accounts? There are a lot of factors that you need to review diligently. Here's a checklist to guide you in your review:
Profile and Banner/Cover Photos
Your profile and banner/cover photos are like the front liners of your brand. They're the images that people will notice right away when they view your profiles, so it's highly important that these are consistent across all your social media accounts. Once people see your logo and photos, they should be able to easily recognize your brand.
Another important thing to consider in your profile and cover photos is that they should reflect your brand’s image and branding. People will always associate and remember your brand with how you portray it online. So it's good to include this factor in your social audit.
Profile or “About” Description
Beyond the profile and cover photos, what people look for in a social media page is the brand’s description or bio. Profile descriptions depict what and who your brand is for.
In most social platforms, bio descriptions are given limited characters only, so it's best that they're written as concise and direct to the point as possible.
Social Media Handles
Social media handles are simply known as your username. When you have accounts across different platforms, having only one username gives uniformity to your brand. It'll also be easier for viewers to search your brand online.
In some brands, they create specific accounts and handles for various purposes. For example, Brand A, @brandA, created a specific social media page purely for customer service, and created the handle @brandA_cs.
Website or Links
One of the main purposes of having a social account is to drive referral traffic to your website. Linking your website to all your social media accounts gives a higher chance of achieving this. It doesn't necessarily have to be your homepage. The website part may also be a link to your latest promotion, blog, etc.
Content
In reviewing your page’s content, you need to take into consideration the following:
- pinned post
- the type of content with the highest social media engagement
- your hashtags
- other relevant posts
Identifying these can help you improve your content and achieve high key performance indicators (KPIs).
3. Define Your Targets for Every Channel
The many accounts you create across all social media platforms may not serve the same purpose. For example, an account in one social media platform may get the most engagement, but the other account in another platform generates more reach or clicks. Therefore, it's best that you align your targets with your performance in each platform for you to maximize your page’s purpose.
In order to define your targets, it's important to measure your key metrics first. Social media tools are widely used nowadays by social media managers to generate these important metrics.
Most, if not all new social media platforms have their own social media analytics tool, such as Facebook insights, etc. For a more generic one, Google Analytics is very popular.
With a social media listening tool, you can get detailed information such as:
- how many views your posts have
- your follower count
- your audience demographics
- how many people visited your website
- how many people clicked your posts
- how many mentions your account has
It's important to have an accessible website and integrate everyone. For this reason, regularly conducting web accessibility audits will ensure to identify technical errors and fix them as soon as possible.
Armed with the information above, you can now easily define your goals for each of your social media channels. And over time, it's suggested that you revisit these targets to check if they still match the performance of your channels.
This is because the social media metrics are very dynamic. A single channel may generate the highest sales in a year, but the following year, it can become the least profitable one. Flexibility and adaptability are the key perspectives when handling social media channels.
4. Calculate Your Profitability
As part of your social media audit checklist, calculating the return of your investment is a must to ensure that you're on the right track.
When doing paid campaigns or ads, you need to take into account your profitability. The higher your profitability is, the more indication that you're doing the right steps.
Of course, profitability may come in many forms, not just monetary. A calculation of ROI in social media marketing strategy may be based on your targets’ achievement.
For example, hitting your target audience insights or engagement metrics may be taken into consideration as part of your profitability, if these are your defined goals in your channel.
5. Explore Other Social Media Channels
As you finish conducting your social media audit, it's important to also look into other platforms where you can grow your business. This is essential so that you don't miss any opportunity in promoting your brand or product.
There are a lot of social media channels nowadays, and it's impossible to be active in all of them. Hence, it's best to focus on those that have the potential to generate more leads or customers for your business.
You can use a social media platform research tool to identify the most popular social media platforms being used by your target audience. This way, you can focus on those channels and create a content strategy for each one.
Remember, you don't need to establish a profile in a channel that doesn't match your needs. What’s important is you're able to achieve your goals in the platforms where you exist.
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How Do You Make a Social Media Audit Template?
Now that you know the basics of a successful audit, it's time to create your very own template. Consider the following key fields as you're doing your audit:
Account Details
- name of the account
- URL
- bio/about section
- hashtags used
Performance Details
- posting frequency
- engagement rate
- reach
- clicks
- web traffic generated
- number of likes
- number of comments
- number of shares
- conversions/sales
- customer acquisition costs (CAC)
Audience Data
- location
- gender
- age
- language
- interests/hobbies
- income level
Goals and KPIs
sales
leads
traffic
engagement
brand awareness
Other Considerations
Your social media audit doesn't stop at analyzing your own accounts. You should also take a look at your competitors' social media performance.
Doing a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and competitor analysis can give you valuable insights on what strategies to use and which ones to avoid. You can also get ideas on what content to post and what kind of tone to use.
What Are Some Tips for Conducting Your Very First Social Media Audit?
Conducting a social media audit can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be! Here are some tips to get you started:
Set Aside Enough Time for the Audit
You can't do a social media audit in one sitting. It'll take some time to go through all your accounts and gather data. Make sure you set aside a few hours (or even days) to complete the audit process.
Be Thorough
A social media audit is only as good as all the data you collect. Make sure you're looking at all the right social metrics and that you're not forgetting anything important.
Be Honest with Yourself
It's easy to get caught up in the numbers and forget about the bigger picture. But it's important to be honest with yourself when doing a social media audit. If something isn't working, don't be afraid to admit it and make the necessary changes.
Use Social Media Audit Tools to Help You
There are a number of free tools out there that can help you save time and get more accurate data. Some of our favorites include Sprout Social, Hootsuite Insights, and Followerwonk.
Keep It Up
A social media audit is not a one-time thing. You should be doing them on a regular basis to ensure that your social media strategy is on track. We recommend doing them at least once a quarter.
Final Thoughts
The social media audit is a necessary process to ensure the success of your social media marketing strategy. By conducting an audit, you're able to take a step back, assess the situation, and make necessary changes to improve your performance.
Don't forget to schedule regular social media audits to keep track of your progress and ensure that you're always on the right track!
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