How to Do a Social Media Audit

Most businesses today have some form of social media presence, as having content available online has become indispensable to long-term business growth. However, posting here and there and sometimes getting excellent engagements may give a business a misleading idea of how well their social media is performing.

A social media audit is vital in genuinely understanding whether or not your social media activity has been worthwhile to your business goals. Do not be discouraged by the term "audit" here; it is much simpler than most people think!

What is a social media audit?

A social media audit is a process used to create a complete analysis of the performance of your social media platforms, measuring the success of your strategy across accounts and networks. This audit uses a combination of different metrics to identify your strengths, weaknesses, and the next steps needed to improve your thrust.

Audits can be done internally by yourself or a company member — others even prefer hiring a digital marketing agency to do the nitty-gritty. Either way, one thing is for sure: after completing an audit, you'll have more confidence in creating decisions to optimize your social media activity and strategy.

Below is an easy 6-step self-audit. Open up any blank sheet document and begin!

1) Round up a list of ALL your social media accounts

And we mean ALL, even the trial ones you may have created earlier on, inactive ones, and those in networks you haven't logged into for a while now. Terminate those you no longer need and report those that might be impersonating you.

For every platform, record your username, the URL, the number of followers or subscribers, engagement metrics, or any other data that might be relevant to each channel.

2) Analyze and review each profile

*Image source: Motion Array Stock Photos*

Now that you've gathered all your social media accounts, you can look into different social media metrics and fill in more information under each profile to get the bigger picture. Social media platforms generally have built-in analytics features that can provide plenty of data to show each platform's strengths and weaknesses for your business.

Zoom in on your branding as well - evaluate your usernames, profile or banner images, pinned posts, copy, brand voice or tone, hashtags, and even colorway to see if something feels off, and again, take note of this and add it to your sheet.

Even better, check out and try to understand your audience for each profile - do they differ in age for every network? Are they more active on specific platforms?

3) Identify your content MVPs

What's working? Determine your top-performing social media content by ranking your posts using a social media metric important to your business goals. Maybe you can focus on those with the most engagement rate, or perhaps those with the most conversion rate are more successful for you. You can also do more than one metric to identify your top content.

Then list down your top five posts on each network. Put in the post links into your social media audit sheet so you can quickly review them later.

Ask yourself which type of content gets your desired response- photos, reels, videos? Longer captions or shorter ones? Do people respond in the same ways across all networks? Does certain content perform better on one platform than others? Are your best posts aligned with your branding? Are their patterns that create top content, such as a specific posting time frame?

4) Assess individual channel's performance

Evaluate how each social network contributes to your overall marketing strategy. If you haven't yet, you must create a defined mission statement and a few key goals or KPIs for each network. Clarify the purpose of each of your social channels and measure their effectiveness.

Several accounts could have similar goals, such as promoting traffic, growing reach, and creating conversions. In contrast, others may be exclusively for brand awareness or other objectives. List each channel's goal(s) and track your progress. Use analytics tools like Google or Hootsuite and write down the actual numbers.

You may even take this step further by comparing your profile's performance against your top competitors.

5) Summarize the audit data by creating a SWOT Analysis

Now that you have a list of data from all your social media networks, it is best to organize your thoughts and simplify. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. SWOT is a time-tested and excellent business and decision-making tool. Having your SWOT laid out in front of you can highlight areas you might have missed in the previous analyses.

Strengths: What is working well? What social media elements do you have that make your business and marketing dreams a reality? What are you doing better on social than others?
Weaknesses: What are your social media activity's pain points or dull areas? What areas are competitive brands doing well and you are not?
Opportunities: How about trying new content or focusing on one more than others? Should you consider joining other networks you haven't signed up for yet? Where can you improve?
Threats: Imagine one year has passed, and your social media activity stays relatively the same; what would it mean for you or your business? Think about how your weaknesses can double over time if not improved.

6) Update and act on your strategy

Ultimately, the goal of any audit is to clarify the situation to help create better decisions. Now that you've done the steps of your social media audit, you can decide on your updated plan and move forward.

What needs to change about how you use social media? Should you put more resources into the creation of content? Maybe you need to hire professional copywriters and digital artists to finetune your brand tone and imagery? Perhaps you can set a better posting schedule?

Be specific about the changes you want to make and why, and then forge a plan to accomplish it.

For excellent social media strategy execution, contact us here at Studio Sixteen and book a discovery session with us today.

How to Do a Social Media Audit

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