10 Proven Reasons Why a Social Media Audit is Critical to your Success

Having a social media strategy is an absolute necessity in order to achieve consistent success on social media. Most businesses realize this need, and have taken the time to detail a social media strategy that aligns with their overall business goals and objectives. Smart businesses setup monthly or quarterly KPI dashboards to report out on the social media metrics that matter to them the most. But, where most businesses fail is in taking the time to perform a complete social media audit to really uncover what is working and what isn’t, missed opportunities to reach a new audience on a different platform, how competitors and peer organizations are finding success on social and a ton of other useful information that should inform a social media strategy going forward.

A social media audit is a thorough analysis of your performance on every social media platform that you have a presence on. A social media audit can be greatly beneficial in setting baseline performance as well as providing evidence for modifying or amplifying certain elements of your social media strategy.

When you complete a social media audit on a regular bases (2x per year or annually), you get answers to questions that are critical to your success on social media. Audits can be more powerful when completed by an outside source as well, because a 3rd party will give you an unbiased look at the big picture as well as minute details. We’ve rounded up some of the most pertinent questions that can be answered by performing a social media audit.

 

1.  How do we Compare to Industry Benchmarks? 

When we perform a social media audit, we like to first take a look at industry level benchmarks as a starting point. While every business is different, understanding how the majority of organizations perform within your industry helps to establish baseline points of reference. Look at key performance indicators such as engagement rate, posts per day, types of content shared, best social platforms, etc. to see how your organization compares. Track this in a spreadsheet to see how things change over time.

 

2. Is our Brand Strategy Consistent across all Social Platforms? 

Looking at all of the social platforms your business is on, how does your brand come across? Are you using a consistent logo on every platform? Are you utilizing your core color palette on each channel? Does your imagery reflect your brand personality? Is your bio/about us section consistent across every platform? The best way to see this is to take a screen shot of the home page on each social platform. Does it visually tell your brand story? Are your visual branding assets optimized for each social platform?

 

3.  Is our Social Content Integrated with our Owned Marketing Assets? 

Have you ever heard the saying “Never build on rented land”? Well, that applies to social media as well. If you are producing content and specifically sharing that content on social media only, then you are putting your business at a huge risk and disadvantage. Whenever possible, you should be creating content for your owned assets first (your website, blog, podcast, brochures, other marketing materials, etc.). Then, repurpose that content for each specific channel. By completing an audit, that includes an analysis of owned marketing assets, you better understand how content is being created, what content is being effectively repurposed and what is developed specifically for social media only. Ensure that the ratio of this leans more towards your owned assets.

4.  Who is our Primary Audience per Social Platform? 

Taking a deep dive into your audience analytics can be very revealing. Look at each channel and see the type of people who are engaging most with you. Does it align with your target audience? Is there an opportunity to reach a different audience with different content? Who you reach and who engages with you can be very telling of the type of content you are sharing. Use platform specific insights as well as 3rd party tools to really paint the whole picture of the audience you have per platform. When you include this information in your social media audit, you can also begin to track changes in your audience over time.

5.  How Well is our Content Performing on Social Media? 

Look at post specific content to determine what is working and what isn’t. For example, on Twitter, look at your Top Tweets and dissect them to see why they performed so well. Take note of the type of message, hashtag use, any @ mentions, links shared, photo/video shared, etc. On Facebook, look at your top performing posts (both by reach and engagement) to better understand what content your audience is responding to. But don’t just look at your top performing content! Also look at your lowest performing posts to try and glean why those bombed. Was the message on-brand, was a controversial topic raised, was it irrelevant to your target audience? Digging deeper on your post performance can help shape your content strategy going forward.

6.  Where are our Competitors and Peer Organizations Finding Success on Social Media? 

Performing a competitive analysis is a key aspect of any social media audit. Look at all the social media platforms that your competitors and/or peer organizations are on. Do they have an active presence on a platform that you don’t? What type of content performs best for them? What type of engagement rate are they seeing across different platforms? Is their branding consistent across all platforms? How active are their social platforms (#posts/tweets, followers, likes, engagement, etc.)? Again, tracking this information using a combination of platform specific analytics as well as 3rd party tools will help paint a holistic picture of how you compare to others in your field. Always look at your competitive/peer best practices and see how you can make those your next practices.

7.  Are we Posting Content at the Optimal Times and Frequency? 

By looking at both your audience analytics and your posts performance, you can begin to understand not only what content works best for a particular audience, but also what day and time is best to publish your content across various social channels. Like the old saying goes… timing is everything! Be sure you are publishing content consistently when your audience is most active online. Being consistent with your publishing schedule not only helps with setting expectations with your audience, but also helps you establish credibility on each platform – which can certainly help with those pesky algorithms.

8.  Are we Optimizing our Engagement on Social Media? 

What does your engagement rate say about your interaction with your audience per platform? Are you more reactionary or proactive? Do your posts inspire your community to respond (without asking them directly!)? Are you a social media giver or taker (or hopefully, both)? Are you sharing both original and curated/shared content? How are you engaging with your community? All of these questions are critical in the day and age of algorithms and social media. The true meaning of social media is to be social – to bring people together as a community. Is your business following this standard? Are you encouraging community discussions or just posting and adding to the digital noise? By auditing your engagement per channel, you will begin to see what type of engagement is most meaningful to your audience and community. Check out our 12 tips to increase social engagement for some ideas on boosting your social interaction.

9.  Are we on the Right Social Media Platforms for our Business? 

When you conduct a social media audit, you uncover a lot of useful information. One of the most beneficial aspects of performing an audit is seeing whether or not it makes sense for your business to be on a specific social platform. There are many ways you can look at the ROI of your social media efforts. This holds especially true if you set SMART goals and objectives within your social media strategy and are conducting regular performance measurements against those goals and objectives. If your activities on a particular platform consistently reveal a poor ROI, it may be a signal to evaluate whether or not that is a valuable platform for your business. Additionally, looking at what other platforms are yielding success for similar businesses may open opportunities to test new platforms. By not being on a social platform, there may be huge missed opportunities to reach a new audience, engage with your target customers, or showcase your content in a more efficient manner.

10.  Are we Achieving our Desired Goals and Objectives on Social Media? 

If you’ve established a cohesive social media strategy, then you should have also identified the SMART goals and objectives you want to achieve. While regular KPIs can help keep you on track with meeting your goals and objectives, a complete social media audit will provide you with the underlying reasons for why your are over or under performing on certain channels. Armed with this information, you can make the best decision for your organization as to how to tweak your current strategy to realize greater success or how to modify certain elements to decrease areas of weakness. As they say, the Devil is in the Details – a social media audit reveals the details necessary to make those crucial business decisions.

Closing Thoughts

There are so many benefits to performing a social media audit. Do they take time? Yes! But once you complete your first audit, it provides the template for updated audits going forward. If possible, consult with an outside party to complete the audit. They approach the audit with an unbiased eye and often “see” things insiders may not. And most importantly, take action on the results of your audit. Adjust your social media strategy, your content, your posting schedule or frequency, your engagement style, etc. as necessary to meet your goals and objectives.

Are you interested in performing a social media audit for your business? We’d love to partner with you on this! Reach out to start the conversation on how we can improve your social media efforts with a complete social media audit.

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