Social media has changed how most companies market their businesses. It has made it easier for businesses to reach a broad target audience without relying on traditional advertising strategies. If you are marketing your business via social media, it will help if you understand how to carry out a social media audit.
A social media audit does not follow the structure and rules of a financial statement audit. It entails compiling vital information about all your social media accounts and ensuring it’s in one place. Once you have the data, analyzing it will help you have a clear picture of your progress, and the best way to improve results. Once done, you will have a strategy that will help you improve your social media channels.
Here is How You Can Perform a Social Media Audit
Have a List of All Your Social Media Accounts
You might have old social media accounts that you don’t use regularly; hence, having a list is the best way to ensure that you have incorporated all of them. You can search the web or social media networks to ensure that you have listed all of them.
Once you’ve tracked down all the accounts, identify those that need further research. For example, you can investigate those not created by someone from your company and contact the account owners directly to shut them down. If they refuse, you can escalate the matter to social media networks for assistance.
The list can also help you to recognize social media networks where you do not have a presence. You can think about whether you should incorporate them into your strategy.
Ensure All Accounts Are Complete and Focus On Your Brand
As soon as you have a list of your social media accounts, you should ensure that it represents your present brand image. You will have to analyze each account separately to gain satisfaction that it is up to date. You can check the profile, photos, pinned posts, and cover images to ensure that they are all as per your brand standards.
Recognize Your Best Posts
For each social media account, you can find at least three posts that engage your audience the most and include their links to your social media audit template. All social media networks have built-in analytics tools that will be helpful during this step. Identify the patterns from the posts and note them in your audit template.
Evaluate the Performance of Each Channel
This step allows you to record each channel’s performance rather than analyzing the performance of separate posts. If you had not created a goal for each social media account, you could do so now. It’s impossible to track results if you do not have plans.
It would help if you engaged a professional company like NetbaseQuid to assist in social media analytics. NetbaseQuid will give you essential customer insights to help you create and achieve your social media goals. Additionally, the company will help you comprehend your brand’s customer perception and help you come up with feasible marketing strategies.
Track Results Regularly
It is best to track results over time to ascertain whether your new strategies are effective. You can compare the results with ones for the previous month or year. Tracking results will eventually allow you to note any consistent seasonal variations and help you identify any unusual changes.
Calculate Your Return on Investment (ROI)
If you are running a paid campaign on any of your social media platforms, it is best to calculate your ROI for each period. It allows you to assess the value of your social media efforts versus how much you spent.
Understand Your Audience for Each Social Media Network
During the audit, it would help if you understood who you can reach through every channel. Audience demographics can offer an excellent starting point for this step. For example, LinkedIn users may have stable income sources, and Snapchat users are younger than Facebook users.
If you are using social media channels for brand visibility, a social media audit will help you identify gaps, set realistic goals, and track them.