How to Conduct a Social Media Audit
A social media audit is a process businesses should go through periodically to assess the health of their social media programs. An audit can help you assess your business goals and the current performance of your social media, and then help you make tweaks and changes to your social media program.
It can also be performed before you even get started creating a social media strategy because the audit can help you develop a good social media program. This prevents companies from performing their social media blindly, which likely won’t help the business in the long term.
So, you see the value in performing a social media audit, but how do you perform one? Here are some things you should do in order to audit your social media.
Know What to Assess
Before you perform your social media audit, you need to know what you should be assessing. An audit for social media is about more than just assessing the performance of your social media. You should also be looking at other business metrics because these will help you make decisions concerning your social media. Here’s a look at what you should be assessing:
- List your accounts. Collect information about your social media profiles, such as username, url, passwords, etc. This will help keep your social media organized.
- Assess goals. If your social media has been in place for a while, chances are pretty good that you had some goals. What were they? Do you think that you’ve achieved them or not? Does your social media align with your current goals?
- Branding. Are your brands strongly represented in your social media accounts? If not, what might you need to do in the future to improve the branding? For example, you can post your logo on your social media profiles, and if it is not there, it really should be.
- Performance. Take a look at the big picture of your social media accounts. At this stage, which is performing better?
- Engagement. Engagement is a popular metric to assess, and you should take note of it during your audit. If your social media accounts are too new, you may not have enough data to make any decisions, but it is still a good idea to note it.
- Audience. The audit is a good time for you to assess your audience metrics on each platform. Each social media account will have a different audience, and you need to determine what that is.
How to Use the Information You Gather
Performing a social media audit is certainly valuable, but it won’t do you much good if you don’t learn how to apply the data. Think about why you performed the social media audit in the first place. Whether you are at the beginning stages or your existing social media plan has been executed for a while, chances are pretty good that you want to use the data to boost the performance of your social media.
To do this, you will need to read the data with an intent to see exactly where you are at. Compare that to what your expectations were. How can your social media help you achieve your business goals? The data should give you some answers and help you tweak your program accordingly.
Categorized in: Social Media
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