A Quick and Easy Guide to Social Media Audit

“Audit” can be a scary word.

When is the last time you were excited to receive a letter from the IRS about issues with your tax returns? Exactly. No one likes them.

However, not all audits are that bad. For example, running a social media audit can be hectic and time-consuming, but it’s the best strategy to help you analyze the impact of your social media campaign. In this article, you’ll discover how to perform a social media audit.

What is a Social Media Audit?

Social media audit is the process of reviewing what is working, what is falling, and what needs to be improved across all your social media channels.

Essentially, social media audit involves collecting and analyzing detailed data from all your social media accounts to determine whether your campaign is paying off. Typical social data to take into account include engagement, results, traffic, audience, ROI, etc.

How to Conduct a Social Media Audit

When you have the right tools and data, running a social media audit shouldn’t take you more than 30 minutes. Here’s a quick guide on how to conduct a social media audit.

Create a Social Media Audit Template

The very first step in conducting a social media audit is to create a social media audit template that should guide you on what’ to be covered as well as help you record your findings. Even if you have a photographic memory, you cannot do a social media audit in your head.

Ideally, a good social media audit template or spreadsheet should include, but not be limited to the following sections:

  • Account information (name & URL)
  • Channel specific metrics
  • Engagement metrics
  • Referral traffic
  • Audience demographics
  • Branding
  • Performance analysis

You can use a ready-made social media audit template (some websites offer audit templates at a small fee) or build your own from scratch in Excel.

Find all Your Existing Social Media Accounts

Now that you have a template to track all your social activities, it’s time to go on the hunt. Start by listing all your existing social media accounts, not just the big four (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn).

Check For Consistency Across All Your Social Media Channels

You’ll want to ensure your branding is consistent across all platforms. Review your name, bio, capitalization, branding, etc.

Also, ensure your voice and tone is the same in all platforms. When there are discrepancies in your social profiles, it can be difficult for your followers and customers to determine which accounts are official.

Analyze Each Social Media Profile

The next step is to dig deep into each profile’s data. In this step, you should get insights into what’s working, what’s not working and what needs to be improved.

Some important performance metrics to analyze include engagement, post shares, links, likes, impressions, referral traffic and more. Fortunately, there are many social media analytics tools that can get you this data with just a few clicks.

Identify Your Best Posts

For each social media profile, identify the best performing posts in terms of engagement. Get insights into what people love most about those posts.

Do you get more post shares or likes when you post photos or videos? Try to identify the pattern of social responses on all your accounts, then purpose to incorporate that info into your social media marketing strategy.

Measure Your Monthly Performance

You have gathered enough information on all your social accounts, now it’s time to work with that data. Try to measure your monthly performance and ROI for each account. Here’s the formula for calculating monthly ROI.

[Revenue – Costs] x 100/costs

You should also get each account’s monthly performance in terms of engagement and traffic. This information can help you determine where to allocate more resources and which accounts to close or work on.

For more information on how to conduct a social media audit, contact ReportGarden or visit their website.

 

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