How to Do a Social Media Audit (template included)

Before you can really craft a social media strategy or even offer recommendations around a company’s social media presence, you need to do an audit. We do this fairly often for clients, and they often ask us exactly what it entails so they can audit their social media activity themselves from time to time. There are a few key things to look at closely:

• Platform — Which platforms are performing well, certainly, but also what are the differences between platforms? Are we working with those differences or plastering the same content across every platform? Why are we on each particular platform? If it’s just because our competitors are, that’s not good enough.
• Content Type — It’s amazing how few companies have a good sense of what type(s) of content do well for them on social media. With a recent client, for example, there was a clear winner — health-related posts were getting 80–90% of their likes on Facebook, and vastly more shares than any other type of post, but there was no strategy in place to prioritize that type of content, or to see how it might do on other channels.
• Performance — Just tweeting regularly isn’t really “success” although many, many companies still see it that way. A tweet on the Internet is like the proverbial tree falling in the forest, if there’s no one liking or retweeting it, does it really matter? Sadly, no. Understanding which posts are getting real engagement is important for companies trying to figure out where to concentrate their efforts.
• Dialogue –Understanding what you’re putting out in the world and how people are responding to it is important, but getting a sense for how consumers are talking about your brand on social media is equally so. A social media strategy can’t just focus on what you want to put out in the world.
• Consistency — Binge-use of social media is definitely a thing, but companies should try to avoid it. It has the effect of making a brand seem less reliable, less engaged, but it’s easy for marketing teams to let the social accounts slide this month or that if another area of the business becomes more important. Having at least one dedicated person whose job is largely focused on social media is crucial.
• Social means people — There is a ton of automation available for social media platforms these days, but we encourage clients to manually engage as much as possible. Sure, you can schedule your tweets in advance, but someone should be around when they go out to respond to any questions or other feedback. Dumping a post on Facebook or a few photos on Instagram and walking away doesn’t really deliver on the engagement potential of social media.

And now … a template!

When staring down the barrel of multiple corporate social media accounts, it can be hard to know where to begin. So… start here. Download our audit template (see below) and get going. It’s in Keynote, but let us know if you’d like it in another format and we’ll get it to you.