Whether we want to admit it or not, social media consumes a large portion of our free time. Because of the hold that social media has on people of all ages, it has become an incredibly influential advertising platform. As a result, companies both small and large have recognized the immense opportunity that lies within using social media as a marketing tool.

If you are a social media marketer, there are a few questions you must ask yourself. Are you using your social channels in the most effective way? Are you meeting your marketing goals? How can you improve or enhance your social media marketing strategy? With so much variety in content form, tone, style, etc., it can be difficult to know which approach to take with social media. This is where the benefits of a social media audit come in. 

What is a Social Media Audit?

A social media audit consists of reviewing your company’s social media activities, analyzing key performance indicators and using those insights to determine the direction of your social media strategy. Messaging that might have worked in the past might not be working so well anymore. It’s important to regularly step back and take a look at how your content has been performing and determine what you can do to improve engagement. We recommend conducting these audits regularly – either quarterly or monthly – but an end-of-year overview can definitely be helpful in looking at the bigger picture.

Why is it Beneficial?

You might have a consistent posting schedule across various platforms, but is your content actually gaining traction and are you consistently adding followers? Is your audience enjoying what you are putting out? These are the questions that can be answered by a social media audit. These audits are beneficial because they help to determine the strengths and weaknesses in your marketing strategy, gain better insight into what your audience likes to engage with and provide a roadmap for your future posting strategy.

Guide to a Thorough Social Media Audit:

1. Data prep

Before you gather your data, you are going to need a place to store it. Choose your favorite spreadsheet program, such as Google Sheets or Excel, or download a template from a site like Sproutsocial or Hootsuite. We recommend including all social channels that your company has an account on, even the ones that you have a lesser presence on. This will allow you to have a more holistic view of your social media presence and could help you see which channels need some more TLC compared to others.

2. Determine goals

Before you start collecting data, it is helpful to lay out your goals for each channel, because this will help you determine what metrics you should be focusing on. Goals might include:

• Building brand authority 
• Growing your followers
• Increasing website traffic
• Generating leads
• Establishing thought leadership
• Increasing engagement

Determining your goals will help you to figure out what the relevant KPIs are and will inform you of which metrics to track.

3. Collect the data

This step is fairly straightforward and consists of simply plugging the data into your spreadsheet. There are several ways you can find this data: the social platform itself, a tool like Google Analytics or a social media management tool like Heyorca or Hootsuite.

3. Analyze trends & find top performing posts

Determine which posts were your most and least successful performers for each channel. Doing so will help you determine what types of posts to continue doing in the future and which ones you can cut out. This information will inform your future posting strategy because you will have better insight on what type of content your audience wants to see on each respective platform.

4. What’s your demographic?

It is also helpful to regularly check in with your demographic data. It is difficult to determine what to post or what tone to use if you don’t even know who is consuming your content. This type of data is often available within the analytics tab of the social platforms and can be extremely informative.

5. Adjust your strategy

At this point you have a spreadsheet full of information, but now what? This is where you take all the data and insights you collected and use that to reevaluate your social media strategy. What were your key takeaways? What can you post more or less of? Which platforms should you dedicate more time and effort into? Checking in with competitors can also be beneficial because you might find that they are hopping on certain trends before you or trying out new platforms that you have not discovered yet. At this point you should have a list of action items and can make more informed decisions for your company’s social strategy.

The social media landscape is constantly evolving, so it is crucial to evolve right along with it. A social media audit can help you regularly reassess your company’s social media strategy and ensure that you are making informed decisions based on current data. Audits can sound daunting, but rest assured it is very much worth the time and effort. If you are keeping an updated record of your data, it makes audits much easier because most of the information you need will already be collected. So what are you waiting for? Get started on that audit!