Advertising, Digital

How to Conduct a Social Media Audit

By: Tiffany Brandon, Social Media Manager

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or new to managing social media accounts, running an audit for your brand or business is never a bad idea. Conducting an audit can let you know what’s working, where your business can improve, and if your social strategy aligns with your business’ goals.

A good strategy is always based on constant re-assessments, tweaks, and adjustments based on data and insights. A social media audit can help you do just that! In this blog post, we will share our best practices for completing a social audit to help you maximize your social media presence. Let’s get started!

What is a Social Media Audit?

A social media audit is a great opportunity to get a clear picture of your current social media efforts and determine the best way to improve performance. Think of it as spring cleaning! Only instead of dusting ceiling fans, you’re polishing up your content and learning about what works best for your business.

This can come in handy when planning future campaigns, rebranding, or reevaluating your marketing approach. The end goal is to make sure that your content has a purpose, is consistent and engaging to your audience, and helps support your brand’s bigger business objectives.

#1 Establish Your Goals & KPIs

When starting your audit, you’ll want to take a step back and zero in on your social media goals for each platform. Goal-setting will guide your strategy and help you narrow in on the metrics you should track for each social platform on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis. Common goals could include:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Increasing community engagement
• Growing your audience
• Generating more leads or sales
• Increasing traffic to your website

Once you’ve determined your goals, you’ll want to measure them accurately by establishing the appropriate KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). A KPI is any metric that can be used to measure success for a particular goal. For example, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, the best KPIs to track would be impressions or reach. Here is an example of how you can lay out your goals/KPIs.

#2 Make Sure Each Account is Complete & On-Brand

Just like how you would make sure your physical storefront has curb appeal, you’ll want to make sure your social media storefront is set to impress. Take time to look at each social platform thoroughly to make sure it’s consistent with your current brand image and standards. Check that your:

• Bio, descriptions, hours, and contact info are filled out
• @Handle or business name is consistent and easy to find
• Imagery in your posts is updated and of high quality
• Profile and cover photos appear and scale correctly
• Creative aligns with your brand standards
• Hashtags or keywords are relevant for discoverability
• Brand voice across posts are consistent
• Links are accurate and drive to your website/landing page

#3 Evaluate Your Visual Strategy

Do you have a visual strategy? What can be improved? When conducting your social audit, you’ll want to hone in on your visual branding, tone of voice, and overall aesthetic. These factors create a strong first impression for your audience and can be a make-or-break factor for whether someone decides to follow you or not.

Developing a strong Instagram theme will not only help you to stay visually consistent, but will also help you be instantly recognizable as a brand. Focus on your profile picture, Instagram Stories highlight covers, and top 9 most recent feed posts. Even something as simple as the colors you choose can have a huge impact on how your brand is perceived.

You can be a minimalist like @HM.

Or have a splash of color like @colormecourtney.

Whatever you choose, be consistent. This will help you establish a clear, focused brand DNA.

#4 Review Followers & Audience Demographics

You can uncover some incredible new insights about your brand or customers simply by digging into your audience demographics. Analyzing your followers can help you understand them better, so you can figure out how to share more relevant content with them. Some key areas to focus on could include:

• Identifying which channels your audience is most active on
• Analyzing if and how your audience differs across platforms
• Digging into location, gender, and age to ensure you’re reaching the right people
• Reviewing the times of day/week your audience is most active
• Using social listening to understand topics or trends among your audience
• Identifying common interests and the types of accounts your audience follows
• Identifying top fans and how you they can advocate for your brand
• Identifying influencers who may resonate well with your audience

Your customers are the reason you do everything you do – or they should be. Your audience analytics offers everything you need to proactively give them what they want. But you have to be digging into the data and actively listening in order to hear them.

#5 Analyze Your Competition

There’s a lot to learn from your competition to help shape your social strategy. Benchmarking your own results against the heavy-hitters in your industry can help you identify opportunities for growth as well as strategies that aren’t performing as well as they should. In your social media competitive audit, make note of the following:

• What social networks are they on?
• How large is their following and how fast is it growing?
• Who are their top followers?
• What accounts, influencers, or businesses do they follow?
• How often do they post?
• What is their engagement rate?
• What is their social share of voice?
• What hashtags do they use most often?
• How many hashtags do they use?
• What type of content do they post?
• What does their content mix look like?
• Are they running paid ads?

You can find much of this information just by clicking around your competition’s social profiles. For more streamlined data gathering, you can tap into tools like Sprout Social which offers more advanced competitor data and insights.

#6 Identify Opportunities for Growth

When conducting your social media audit, it can also be valuable to look into ways your business could utilize new and emerging social platforms, features, or trends. Maybe you’re curious about TikTok and want to explore how this platform can benefit your business. That’s great! Include that in your audit and take away an action item to delve more into that platform to see if it makes sense for your brand. To identify other opportunities for growth, consider asking yourself the following questions:

• Am I utilizing trending content platforms (Stories, Reels, IGTV, Live Rooms, etc.)
• Am I using hashtags and location tags to increase discoverability?
• Am I partnering with influencers to create sponsored content?
• Am I collaborating with like-minded brands to host giveaways, takeovers, and other co-marketing campaigns?
• Are there new social platforms that I should consider/implement?
• Am I running paid social media ads or boosting posts?
• Am I testing different types of content? (Live Videos, Carousels, Animations, GIFs, etc.)
• Am I engaging regularly with my community and following new accounts?
• Am I cross-promoting content across social platforms?
• Am I finding relevant Facebook or LinkedIn groups to join and share content to?

While conducting a social audit may take some extra leg work, the knowledge you will gain about your brand will be well worth it in the long run. Not only will your social team or senior executives appreciate the insights and recommendations, but the audit will help you establish clear goals and benchmarks to measure over time. The end result will be a stronger social media presence fueled by great content.

Need help auditing your social profiles or getting your accounts off the ground? Contact us today and find out how MassMedia can help take your social media profiles to the next level!

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