A Social Media Audit is like giving your business a physical. It makes sure that your business’s health and wellness are completely up to date. You can check to see that everything is working the way it should be. Better yet, you receive detailed insights with regards to your social media successes and failures.

It is an absolutely necessary part of any company. You need to be undertaking an audit at least annually to keep everything up to date. Conducting one isn’t as hard as it seems either, as the steps in this guide will be able to show you.

What is a Social Media Audit?

A social media audit consists of collecting and analysing data from all of your social media channels, says Alexandra Tachalova. It will then take a close look at things like the activity, audience, and financial investments. It’s all about determining if your social media networks are meeting expected goals, as well as ensuring that it remains relevant to your business and audience.

You may also want to read: Here’s How Proper SEO Audit Can Help You Beat Competitors

In many ways, an audit is a lot like going over a business budget; you can discover a lot.

Just as you may find surprise spending in your budget, the audit could show that you are spending too much time on a platform that is just not yielding the results you expected.

To evaluate and optimise your social media marketing so that it can be fully effective, you need to audit every single aspect of your social media strategy. This includes:

• Average response rates
• Engagements and click
• Referral traffic
• The sentiment behind engagement

This will build a clear and concise picture that the audit will be able to work with.

Why Should You Perform An Audit?

Conducting a social media audit answers a number of questions about the relationship between your company and its online customers. Here’s a quick rundown for you to browse through:

• Shows if your presence on each platform brings in new customers
• Indicates whether your presence on each platform is able to retain old customers
• Illustrates if any of the profiles you have do not fit with your marketing plan. It can then realign them or recommend that they are removed.
• Highlights which marketing strategy and techniques are successful and which need re-evaluation
• And it reveals the number of fake followers you have!

Easy Steps for Successful Auditing

If you are ready to take the next step and actually carry out a social networks audit, all you will need are the steps below to guide you through. Remember to take your time and follow each of them closely.

#1 Schedule the Audit

First, schedule some time to get the audit done without any distractions. Ideally, you should reserve an entire day for the task as this will allow you to put a good amount of time and effort into the process. Ideally, there should be an audit scheduled every six months. But you should never go longer than a year without one, or the workload becomes overwhelming.

#2 Gather all the Stats

On audit day, you need to spend some time compiling all of the social media metrics you are able to so that you can get accurate results. To help you out, here is what the metrics will include:

• The number of:
  • Followers
  • Likes
  • Shares/retweets
  • Comments
  • Clicks
  • Video views
  • Mentions
• Overall post reach

 

You can access this data from each social media platform. But the most time-effective way to do this is by using reputable third-party tools that gather all of it for you. These make everything easier to access as all of the data is in one place. They can even get data from difficult platforms, such as Snapchat, effortlessly.

At this point, you should also be analysing the data you are receiving and really getting into the details. You can compare post success across platforms to see which ones are performing well, and which need a little more attention. It gives you a clear idea of where to go next and how to move forward.

#3 Analyse the Audience Demographics and Interests

One thing you need to remember is that the people following you on each platform are likely to be different. For example, Snapchat tends to be used by younger audiences, whereas Pinterest is used by older ones. The gender of your demographic can change a lot across platforms, as can the interests those people have.

If you compare the demographics for each platform, you can come up with a good idea of what will work and what will not on each of your social media profiles. It means you can end up with a wider reach to your key demographic, thus boosting your marketing. There are also third-party tools available to help you view each demographic.

#4 Channel-Wide Consistency and Quality Check

Now you can take a closer look at the way you are using each of your social media accounts. It’s all about making sure you remain consistent across all of them, while ensuring that your quality remains high.

A quick example: are you replying to Twitter messages as fast as Facebook ones? Is the level of customer care and attention the same across all platforms? If not, why? What is the type of content?

It is important to keep discrepancies as small as possible.

Next, look at the kind of content you are sharing across each platform. Has it changed drastically, or has it remained consistent? Customers are not often fans of drastic change. So keep things regular and implement any changes slowly, to yield the best results. You should also make sure that your profiles are consistent in terms of appearance, with things like the logo and pinned posts.

#5 Budget Review and ROI Calculation

Finally, you should take the time to look over your budget. This is a key aspect because it is so often neglected. And it can teach you a lot about your business.

You also need to calculate your ROI. This can be difficult to ascertain on social media so it requires more time and attention. Really, you could refer to this as social ROI as opposed to financial.

All you need to do is gather all of your social media costs and then compare them with the results they gained.

Did the image that professional photographer took for you generate a massive number of leads? Was your ad campaign poorly timed and therefore generated less engagement than expected? This allows for a clear result. Again, third-party software is available to help with this.

To Conclude

It can seem like a pretty intimidating process, and it is going to take you a little time to complete. However, once you get started and into the flow of things, it will become much easier. Plus, it is a really worthwhile investment of your time, and can even help to improve your business and profits.

This is a process that allows you to see where you are going right. And it highlights the areas that need to change if you want to continue growing. Insight like this is incredibly valuable to any company, and it will make you so much stronger. Set a day aside, and get this valuable task done along with some social media audit template.

Any Comments?

Do you run social media audits? What benefits have you found? Do you have any additional tips you’d like to pass on to your fellow readers? Please leave any comment you may have. Thanks!

Throughout his career, Milosz has been consulting and devising growth strategies for small and start-up businesses, particularly within financial services. His focus areas include search, conversion and technical developments.

Prior to the acquisition of Chilli Fruit Web Consulting, Milosz was involved in Plus Guidance (an early-stage UK tech start-up, now acquired) and Sigma Digital Marketing Agency, based in Oxfordshire. You can connect with Milosz on Facebook here or tweet him @MiloszKrasinski

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