Looking to evaluate your online presence and learn precisely how your brand is performing on social media? If you feel like you’re just going through the motions and not leveraging your social media profiles effectively, it’s time for a social media audit! An “audit” can sound intimidating, but it doesn’t need to be. Here are some tips for completing a simple audit of your social media efforts to grow your digital presence while supporting your organization’s objectives.
Review your current social media accounts.
Check for profile completeness and consistency.
Think of someone visiting your social media profile as a first impression. An informative, easy-to-navigate profile is a significant first step in creating a positive customer journey and experience.
- Is all the necessary information filled out? Your followers should have any relevant information right at their fingertips. Your contact information, general bio, and links should all be up-to-date. It’s important to always have a profile and cover photo that utilize high-quality images. Don’t forget to ensure all photos are in the correct size and format!
- Is this information consistent across all platforms? Your handle should be the same on all channels. This makes it easier for your viewers to find you.
- All profiles should feature a clickable call-to-action to direct users to your website or another relevant landing page. Make sure all links go where they are intended to.
Cohesive brand messaging
Ensuring your profile is complete is the first step. But is it an ideal portrayal of your organization?
- The content in your bios and all images should be up-to-date and accurately represent your brand. Someone who views your profile should get an overall sense of what your brand is about and what your vision and values are.
- Pay close attention to links and pinned posts. Ensure these portray recent, relevant content and aren’t outdated. As a customer, nothing is more frustrating than looking for information and being unable to find it. Make it easy and enticing for viewers to connect with you and spend more time on your profile and website.
Privacy settings
- We can’t stress enough how important it is to review your privacy settings! Ensure they reflect your desired level of privacy and security.
- Turn on two-factor authentication. It may take a few extra minutes to log in when you need a code. But it’s better to be safe than sorry and lose all the progress you’ve made building up your social community.
Review & evaluate the performance.
Evaluate each channel.
With the constant updates of social media platforms and the development of new ones, are you where you want to be? Only some channels will be successful for all organizations, and what was effective at one time might not always be.
- You’ve probably heard us preach about how more followers aren’t necessarily the best indicator of success. However, when evaluating your performance on specific channels, take note of the number of followers you have on each. This can help notice trends and determine if a presence on that platform is still worth it.
- Every platform has the defining characteristics that make it unique. As these evolve, it’s essential to evaluate if your organization has the resources to keep up with what’s needed. Say you’ve been toying with being more active on TikTok. If you don’t have a team available to create the video content needed for this platform, then it may not be the best choice for you now.
Review content performance
What posts are performing well, and what aren’t? This is your opportunity to dive into your content and see what’s working and what improvements can be made moving forward.
- Identify your best-performing posts and review engagement rate, reach, impressions, and other important metrics for your organization. Do these posts have anything in common? Do photos or videos tend to be the most popular? Are people responding to posts with strong CTAs?
- Content will perform differently depending on the platform. Identify what performs well on what platform. While you’re here, ensure your content is formatted correctly for each platform. We strongly recommend posting intentionally and not repurposing identical posts across platforms.
Audience insights
Are you attracting and retaining a relevant audience? Take a closer look at the followers that make up your audience and their engagement levels.
- Be aware of the demographics of your audience on each channel. To understand your followers, it’s helpful to know their locations, ages, gender, and interests.
- Being present on a platform is only worth it if your ideal target audience is also there. It may be time to reevaluate if you’re not reaching who you want to reach. To help identify this, compare your follower count to your engagement rate.
Analyze & update a marketing strategy.
Create goals
Now’s your opportunity to focus on realigning your social media efforts with your company’s vision and objectives. With the newly identified patterns you’ve discovered, consider what adjustments you need to make to contribute to your company’s overall business objectives.
- These goals can include increasing engagement, improving the quality of content, or expanding your audience to reach new followers.
- Your goals don’t have to be the same for all platforms; we recommend that they aren’t. Since what it takes to be successful varies immensely from platform to platform, tailor your goals accordingly.
Update strategy
Look at your learnings and new goals compared to your social media and digital marketing strategies. Everything you are doing should still fit into your organization’s broader goals.
- If you’ve decided a platform is no longer serving you, deactivate it! Change up the types of posts and post more of what is garnering higher engagement.
- Ensure you have a plan moving forward. We recommend creating a content calendar to assist with consistency and accountability.
- Complete a full annual audit, but review your account’s performance regularly and monthly to track your progress and make any necessary adjustments.
A social media audit is a great way to understand your social media processes better. Look at it as an opportunity to review what’s working, change what’s not, and redefine a successful strategy to ensure your social media pursuits are always aligned with your overall business objectives.
If you’ve performed self-audits in the past and are ready for a fresh set of eyes to take a deep-dive look at what’s happening internally and externally with your social media efforts, we can help.
Our Social Media Audit consists of an analysis and recommendations on everything social, including your social media platform selection, content efforts, engagement, analytics, hashtags, calls to action, advertising and paid promotions, and so much more! Connect with us to get started!