How to perform a social media audit in 6 easy steps

A social media audit is an important part of social media marketing, it is a review of what’s been working for your brand, and what needs to be improved upon. This article defines all the necessary components of a successful social media audit.

Create a spreadsheet

Create a spreadsheet including all the account information for each relevant platform (ie. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc):

• Engagement rate
• Retweets
• Shares
• Referral traffic
• Impressions
• Followers
• Likes

Identify your best performing posts

The goal of identifying your best performing content is to figure out what resonates with your audience. Review your content and see what performed the best over-time; this can be done by looking at the engagement rate. Continue to apply elements of your best performing posts to improve your overall content strategy. At the same time, you can identify your worst performing posts and speculate on reasons why your audience isn’t enjoying them.

Ensure consistent branding

Having a consistent look across all platforms builds brand recognition and credibility. The more uniform your strategy is, the easier it will be for your target audience to recall your business each time they see your content. Ensure that you have cohesive branding at all touchpoints; including but not limited to logo, colors, graphics, usernames, and biographies.

Consider your audience

Take a deep dive into your social media audiences; look at factors like age range, common location, gender split, and shared interests. If you’re still not reaching your target audience, figure out why. It could be because you’re using the wrong imagery, tone of voice and messaging, or you’re on the wrong platforms altogether.

Review your budget

There are many things to consider when you’re reviewing your budget on social media spending.

• Ad spend
• Consultant or agency fees
• Contest and sweepstakes
• Employee salaries
• Third-party tools for scheduling, content creation, management, and analytics (these can add up quickly so unsubscribe to paid services you don’t frequently use)
• Freelancers and talent (ie. models, photographers, editors)

Look at the total costs, the benefits you’ve received, and whether these tools make your business or brand more efficient. In addition, ask yourself if these costs helped you generate better results from your content. If not, could your budget be better spent elsewhere? Consider reevaluating your creative assets to see what could have been more effective.

Adjust your objectives

Take a look at your initial brand objectives. By using the data from your audit, you can see if you met the goals that you set for your business, and take actionable steps to improve. This is the time to put your findings into action.

A clear indicator that you are in need of an audit is when you’re not seeing the results that you hoped for. Social media is constantly changing, and an audit is a great way to keep your content strategy fresh and effective. Something to consider even when seeing good results is: could they be better? Even with successful marketing, it is worth revisiting your strategy a few times each year.