8 easy steps to perform a social media audit

Use these steps to evaluate how well your social media strategy is working

A social media audit is an evaluation of what’s working and what’s not working with your social media strategy and what you can improve. Additionally, it takes inventory of all your accounts, messages, and materials and their reach. It functions within a communications audit to measure the success of the messages your company sends out.

Here are eight steps to help you complete a successful social media audit.

1. Locate all existing social media accounts.

It’s important to audit all social media accounts, not just your most popular ones. Your company may have old, forgotten accounts that are inactive. Use tools like Namechk or Knowem to find any overlooked or old accounts.

2. Analyze each social media outlet.

This portion of the audit includes engagements, likes, retweets, shares, referral traffic, impressions, and more. It shows how each social media outlet is performing.

3. Identify your best social media posts.

Review your content and see what performed the best. What do your followers like about the content? Dissect your best performing posts and continue to apply those elements to future posts. This eliminates content your followers don’t relate with and improves your content strategy.                                                                                                                    

4. Identify your site’s most shared content.

This step examines the posts that are the most shared and breaks it down by social media platform. Similar to step three, you want to determine which elements of the most shared content your followers like and continue to create content using those elements.

5. Check your branding.

Look at your profiles on each platform and be sure they’re alike in appearance. Having consistent profiles across social media builds credibility and legitimacy. Some things to check are your logo, colors, graphics, URLs, and bio.

6. Pinpoint your audience.

You should have an idea of who your target audience is. This part of the audit checks to see if your followers match your target audience. Your audiences should be similar across all social media platforms, and if they’re not, reevaluate your content to see what you need to attract the ideal followers.

7. Explore new social media platforms.

Stay up to date with the newest social media platforms and keep an eye out for any that interest you or may fit your company. Don’t jump on every trend, because some don’t last and could be a waste of time.

8. Refine your objectives.

So, how are the results from your social media audit? Whether they’re good or bad, you can always improve. Use this as an opportunity to refine your social media objectives for next month. These can include gaining more followers, leading more followers to your website, increasing audience engagement, and more.

Regularly checking your company’s social media performance is key to gaining new clients. If you want more help improving your social media efforts and completing a successful social media audit, download this social media audit template from Sprout Social, which we revised according to our experience and needs.

Morgan Stark is a senior at the University of North Florida working toward a Bachelor of Science in public relations.

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