A social media marketing strategy works when its foundation pillars are strong enough to bear the burden of the set business and marketing goals. There is no better way to build a robust social media marketing strategy other than conducting a social media audit. Being the primary step, a social media audit essentially involves compiling key information about all your social media accounts.
Once you have the information in one place, it becomes easier to analyze the current social media efforts and bring meaningful improvements. But, how does one conduct a social media audit in the first place?
In this post, we will share the eight steps to conducting a social media audit. Let’s dive right in!
1. List All The Social Media Accounts And Platforms In Use
When we say ‘all social media accounts,’ we don’t just mean collecting the account you currently use. You will have to record all the accounts you regularly use and the ones you abandoned at some point. It can be quite a hassle to find old social media accounts.
But, you can find them by searching for them on the web and social networks. Also, find out the ‘fake accounts’ created in the name of your brand. We highly recommend if you can jot down the credentials of every account on an Excel sheet.
2. Complete Profiles And Check Consistency Across All Accounts
It’s time to put things into action by first completing the social media profiles. Make sure you are thorough when you put information in your social media accounts. Take your time and ensure that the information put across accounts is consistent with your brand guidelines.
You will have to refer to your brand style guide to check whether or not the elements and information you use are up-to-date. Check for components like profile images, cover images, profile bio, social handles, links, pinned posts, and verification badges.
3. Finalize The Time Period To Conduct Social Media Audit
Before measuring the performance of your social media accounts, you should finalize the time period over which you will analyze them. It is crucial that you track the results over time to be spot on with regular seasonal variations.
You can measure the results quarterly, monthly, annually, or for a particular season. When you collect performance data for a specific time period, it becomes easier to compare and make conclusions.
4. Sample The Best Posts Under Each Account
It’s time you start measuring the post performances by recording the top three posts on each channel. You are looking for posts that have had the most engagement. These top-performing posts will help you create an ideal social media template for upcoming campaigns.
Once you collect the posts across all accounts and channels, you should start looking for patterns.
What is it that you commonly do that brings in the most response? What type of content is making the most buzz on your accounts? Does the same post perform well on two or more accounts? Look for patterns and use engagement metrics to draw conclusions.
5. Measure The Social Media Channel Performance
The next step involves measuring the channel performance. When measuring channel performance, evaluate the channels by testing their alignment with your mission statement, business, and marketing goals. This will help with performance evaluation.
If possible, create mission statements for each channel since one performance evaluation criteria won’t fit all channels. Identify the key metrics for each social channel and then make a solid mission statement. You Facebook and Google Analytics to get started.
6. Calculate ROI Of Social Media Marketing
What is the ROI of your social media marketing efforts? Return on Investment is a significant metric that will help measure the success you have on a social media channel.
You can measure the ROI by recording how much you spent on social media marketing and how much value you generate for the brand through the efforts. You might want to factor in your business and marketing goals when calculating the ROI.
Calculating the social media marketing ROI can be a little tricky. Make sure you hire an expert social media marketer to help you measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing campaigns.
7. Conduct Audience Analysis For Each Channel
The social media audience is a massive factor when designing a social media marketing strategy. It is crucial that you know the people your social media accounts and posts reach through each channel.
Check for audience demographics for all social media channels and analyze them individually. Since most social media platforms have the analytics feature, learning about audience demographics will not be challenging.
8. Standardize Social Credentials
Lastly, ensure that access to all the analyzed social media accounts is centralized. Don’t give every member of the team individual credentials to access a channel. Keep things standardized so that you don’t have to change the credentials every time a team member leaves.
This is very important for the security of your branded social media channels. Always ensure that the right people are accessing the channels. Do the same with the social media tools you use to run the campaigns.
Conclusion
It is quite evident that social media audit isn’t straightforward. This 8 step process can be quite demanding and exhausting especially if you lack prior experience. We highly recommend not to take chances when conducting a social media audit. After all, the success of your social media marketing strategy depends on it.
Do check out our guide on conducting a digital media audit to gain further insights on the strengths and weaknesses of your business.
