Performing a small business social media audit isn’t as scary as it sounds, and can be done in a short time when given the right tools.
A social media audit can help to identify performing and non-performing profiles plus profer solutions or steps to optimize no or low performers. For instance, an Instagram audit can identify lapses and show you what to do to grow your Instagram following.
In this post, we’ll cover both and touch on a couple of other important aspects of small business social media audit but first
What is a Social Media Audit?
When most people hear “audit” feel fear because failed tax and financial audits can land defaulters in jail. But there is nothing to fear about a social media audit.
It involves juxtaposing all your small business social media profiles/practices from site to site to see how each looks and performs against the others.
A social media audit is much more similar to taking stock, self-appraisal, self-examination, etc.
Only this time, the subject of study is (all) your small business social media profiles or accounts.
Why is it Necessary?
An effective social media audit is like going for a medical check-up or taking your Mercedes to the mechanic. It comprises diagnostics and treatment, finding out and fixing whatever is wrong with your social media accounts.
This is necessary because there are billions of active social media users including millions of businesses competing for their attention. Without an audit, you may not know what is wrong with your social media strategy until it’s too late.
Important Things You Can Learn from a Social Media Audit
Implementing a social media audit can help you gain information such as:
- Overall social media marketing health/performance
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
- Opportunities
- Threats
- What worked
- What works
- What doesn’t work (anymore)
- Brand perception
- Social sentiment around your brand
- Customer perception of your brand
- Fake impostor accounts
- Unauthorized accounts
- Duplicate accounts
- Competing accounts
- New trends you can leverage on for better future campaigns
- Performing accounts
- Low performing accounts
- Nonperforming accounts
- Dormant accounts, etc
How to Conduct a Social Media Audit
How to conduct a social media audit depends on you. It can be done manually or using specialized social analytics tools.
Some use spreadsheets and manually record entries, others use in-app social analytics features on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Analytics, etc.
Still, others use third-party apps and tools specifically designed for social media audit.
5 Quick Steps to Conduct a Manual Social Media Audit
- Create a spreadsheet called SMA (social media audit), include columns for date, time, platform, log in details, the person responsible (manager), and other key social media performance indicators (KPI) like a number of likes, shares, etc.
- Log into each platform and document your findings on paper, then transfer the same to the appropriate corresponding fields of your spreadsheet. You can do this over a period of time, then find averages.
- You can turn your data into visualizations using free chart creation tools like Microsoft Excel, Piktochart, Visme, etc, and draw necessary inferences and deductions.
- Present your findings to your team and have group discussions about your findings.
- Draw up an action plan to correct flaws and optimize accordingly.
Things to Look Out for During Social Media Audit
- Bio/Profile
- Logo
- Moto
- Color consistency
- Display pictures
- Profile
- Handles
- Headers
- Hashtags
- Posts/content performance (type, length, frequency, reach, engagement, likes, shares, etc)
- Mentions (positive, negative)
- Shoutouts,
- Ads performance (cost, ROI)
5 Smart Ways Small Businesses Can Conduct Efficient Social Media Audits
1. Search and Track Down all Accounts
Collate all your social media assets/accounts to avoid a botched social media audit; everything including old, new and abandoned accounts.
Search for misspellings or abbreviations of your business name/handles, include country-specific extensions like dot us, dot UK, etc.
Also search other social networks and websites your company isn’t officially registered on like Yelp, Trust Pilot, Glassdoor, Indeed, etc.
Lastly, using reverse image search, check for impostor accounts that may be using your brand image assets like logo, etc
2. Figure Out Best Performing Platform(s) for Your Business
Social platforms are not created equal, therefore, performance will differ from network to network. When comparing platforms, focus on two main performance indicators; that is content and engagement.
Content
A content audit is a key component of a social media audit because everything revolves around content. It Identifies:
- performing and underperforming posts
- posts with the most engagement
- best and worst-performing content types
- videos with highest views
- posts with highest clicks
- posts with the most mentions
- most keywords/hashtags
- the average response rate for posts
Engagement
Engagement is at the heart of social media marketing. It’s used for checking:
- number of likes
- number of shares
- number of comments per post, etc
Evaluation of both content and engagement will reveal the best performing platform for your business.
Other metrics such as click-through rates, reach and conversion should also be evaluated.
3. Check out the Competition
Beyond measuring your business’ performance across the board, social media audit also involves comparing your performance with those of your top competitors and other key players.
The best part is you can spy your competitor’s strategies and performances in stealth mode, completely undetected, even by merely visiting their profiles and scrolling down their timelines.
This way you’ll learn which content type works best for them, the number of times they post, level of engagement and response they get, etc. And since you likely share a similar audience, some of their strategies may also work for you, may just require a little tweaking to customize it.
And in case you didn’t know, they’re probably checking you out while you read this.
4. Be Consistent
Social media audits should not be one-off or once in a blue moon, but rather like a recurring decimal or routine medical check-up.
An audit is only as good as the previous audit. Performing regular audits is key to measuring the growth and performance of a business. Why do you need to conduct consistent audits? Here are some few reasons:
- It helps to measure progress
- It can help detect hidden social media marketing time bombs before they explode
- It ensures checks and balances which ensures growth
Audits can be conducted quarterly or bi-monthly for more efficient results.
5. Draw Inferences
Merely conducting social media audits won’t suffice, except you’re learning something valuable from it and taking necessary action.
To take appropriate action you need to draw insightful inferences from all your documented observations. You may need a think tank to help here. Joint brainstorming can produce amazing results.
For instance, you may discover a lot of brands are leveraging Game of Thrones to successfully promote their business, and decide to find ways to also tap into it to excite and engage your followers or customers.
10 Recommended Tools for Effective Social Media Audit
These tools are listed in no particular order.
Conclusion
Social media audits are like medical checkups, they have preventive and curative properties. Constant social media audits will do your small business a lot of good.
Have you ever conducted a social media audit? Share your experience with us.
Amos Onwukwe
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- 5 Ways to Ace Small Business Social Media Audit - July 26, 2019
