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How to Conduct a Social Media Audit + FREE Audit Template
Social networks have become the best allies for a good digital marketing strategy. They allow us to reach a larger and larger audience and achieve our business goals. However, the world of social media is not as easy as it may seem. Before making decisions and starting to publish as if there were no tomorrow, we must analyze what is happening on our social networks and those of our competition with social media audit.
What is a Social Media Audit?
Social media audits are a process of updating, optimizing, and reviewing the accuracy, value, and health of your social media profiles.
When conducting these, you could research and keep a collection of information about your social networks and those of your competition. This way, you can determine in what exact situation your company is on social platforms and compare it with your competitors.
Thanks to these social profile analyses, you’ll understand if you need to improve your strategy. You will have the opportunity to make the correct decisions and be supported by a lot of information.
A social media audit consists of, but isn
- Checking if you are focused on the right asocial channels for your brand.
- Analyzing the performance of your content against your competitors.
- Ensuring your brand is representing its visual and verbal identity correctly.
It is advisable to conduct a social media audit when preparing to launch a social media marketing plan or change your strategy. However, we also encourage you to conduct this often, at least every 2-3 months.
How to Conduct a Social Media Audit
Social media auditing may sound complex and laborious, but when you break it down it becomes an easy process. In this guide, you will learn how to run your own social media audit efficiently to improve your overall social media marketing strategy.
#1. Choose the channel you want to analyze
Often, when we decide to launch into the world of social networks, we do it in a big way, opening profiles on all available platforms. But, this is not always the right move.
If you have all the time in the world to focus on your social media channels to keep them always impeccable, that would be fantastic. However, if we are realistic, this is not usually the case. We don’t have that time, and the truth is that not all platforms bring us the same results. We should analyze and map our situation on each social platform.
Therefore:
▶️ ️ Analyze where you are active on social media, and the overall presence, engagement, activity, and content.
▶️ ️ Ask yourself if this channel is working, in other words, if you continue to grow a community and it benefits your brand’s overall goals. If your answer is no, consider discarding those profiles that are not working as expected.
#2. Review your profile since the last audit
After selecting the social network, you can start to review your profile and what content you have posted since your last audit. If this is your first audit, look back 2-3 months. Start with the basics, such as your username, follower count, description, links, etc.
Then you can move to review your highlights or pinned content, if applicable. Is this content still relevant? A lot of time on platforms like Instagram, we can flood our Story highlights with content that goes back 123 weeks. That content probably isn’t relevant anymore, and not necessary.
Next, you will start going through your content and doing a quick review of likes, comments, reactions, reposts, and saves. Then in the next step, you can identify which posts did the best.
#3. Identify your top-performing posts
It’s crucial to know which posts performed well, but exhausting yourself by going post by post is not necessary. With Metricool you can review your top-performing content for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitch. To access this, you just need to create a free Metricool account and connect your social media platforms.
Having this data will help you understand what content is performing best, so you can replicate those strategies and continue to improve your content.
#4. Refine your brand image
Your goal is to have your brand or business be recognizable by your audience and catch the attention of users. This brand image should remain consistent across your content to increase the chances your brand resonates with users.
Make sure that when reviewing your brand image, you have your logo included, whether that’s in your profile picture, content, or both. Have your tone of voice in your copy reflect how your businesses can help your customers.
#5. Analyze your market and competitors
Knowing the performance of your competition on social networks is vital. Analyze the current market, what strategies your competitors are using, and where their numbers sit compared to yours. By monitoring the market, you will find trends and news within your sector. This will help you adapt your strategy according to the current situation.
Want to quickly find information about your competitors across socials? Metricool’s competitor analysis features allow you to search by their social media handle to populate their top posts, overall following, comments, and engagement rates.
#6. Set new goals
Once you have analyzed the data and know what has worked well and your current position, it’s time to set new goals and objectives. Ask yourself, “What do I want to achieve, and by when?”
Conducting a social media audit can help you answer this question, and by cleaning up your profiles, you can also reassess your strategies.
How to Analyze the Data for Your Social Media Audit
So now you want to know how to analyze the data for your social media audit, right? There are two different options, but if you want to save time I would recommend the second…
✅ Using the social networks’ native analytics tools
Each social network offers its version of analytics, data, or insights on your account growth and content metrics. By taking the metrics that seem relevant to your analysis and importing the information to a Word or Excel document, you can have your social media audit done.
You should take note of your following balance, engagement, reach, saves, likes, and comments. Which posts resulted in a website click, event sign-up, product purchase, or registration?
✅ Using Metricool
Instead of conducting the data manually, you can gather all of the information explained above using one tool. In this case, Metricool can come in handy to facilitate your social media audit.
These are the most important factors to take into account in conducting a thorough social media audit. We have also created our own social media audit template, with a link to a Canva template you can copy and use to record your social media audit information. Download it for free and start polishing your profiles!
However, remember that this is only a small part of a social media strategy. There are multiple actions and factors that you must consider to succeed.
Do you have any questions? Let us know! 👇🏻