Social Media Audit

What is a social media audit? “A social media audit is the process of reviewing what’s working, what’s failing and what can be improved upon across your social media channels.” A good social audit will take into consideration your niche, your target audience, your current social presence, your goals for social media, your current results with social media, and your options. You’ll want to: Double down on the content that's generating the most impressions and engagement Refine the content that isn't hitting the mark Source

Unfortunately a lot of nonprofits don’t have means/time to do this

Locate all your social media profiles Nothing is worse for a social media marketer than wasting time on a platform that isn’t producing any results. No matter how popular Snapchat may get, it doesn’t mean anything if it’s not performing well for your business. Look also for unofficial accounts, either those set up by well-meaning employees and users or those created by rogues and spammers. Perform a general search for your brand on all the major social networks; you might be surprised what’s out there—fake accounts, employee pages, spam, etc. Namechk.com can help

Decide on a time frame Before you start your social media audit, pick the time frame you will be researching. A year is a common time frame for a social media audit, but you could do shorter periods like quarters or every six months.

Start your spreadsheet Because you’ll be comparing data from different platforms, it’s helpful to compile all of your results in a single spreadsheet. Another tip is to create one “hub” tab on your spreadsheet, then a tab for each individual social media channel instead of having them all on one. Not every social media channel has the same metrics, so it’s easier to just break them up. For instance, one of the things you’ll measure for Twitter is your number of Retweets. Pinterest and Facebook don’t have Retweets, so those columns would be pointless.

Key Progress Indicators (KPI’s) is a term you need to know

Basics of audit checklist #1 Measure overall results Profile information (name and accounts) Posting frequency Types of posts (text, graphics, images, video) Categories of posts (informative, informational, engagement, etc.) Follower count Channel specific metrics (shares, retweets, reach, mentions, top performing posts, post type, etc.) Communication/response with followers (likes, comments, responses, etc.) (For any type of metric, you should include the percentage change from the previous month and the previous year. The problem with only comparing your numbers from the previous month is it doesn’t account for seasonal changes.)

I also here like to think of the goals your organization gave you Which of the goals is satisfied by each post/tweet, etc. If you have a lot of posts, etc., that don’t seem to meet a goal, then you have an issue.

To be more specific, some ideas

Identify Top Performing Social Media Posts If your posts aren’t engaging and resonating with your followers, you won’t succeed. Use your audit to review the content you’ve shared and identify which posts had the biggest impact (likes, comments, etc.) In this part of the audit, determine what types of posts work best on each platform, which platforms are most valuable to you, and how your audience is engaging with you on each platform.

#2 Define Your Audience Your social media followings might be different for each platform. If you market your business on Pinterest or Snapchat, you know how true this can be. You also may be missing one demographic of your target audience on one platform. You probably don’t have as many male followers on Pinterest or lack older followers on Snapchat, for example. Your audit shouldn’t focus also on who’s actually following you. Audience personas: A deep look at the demographics of your audience, including their interests, fears, needs, and behaviors.

Most social media sites provide audience information, like Facebook’s Audience Insights or Pinterest’s Analytics. Some third-party analytics tools, including Sprout Social, also provide this information.

My Twitter Audience Analysis

#3 Completion and Consistency Your brand should be immediately recognizable across all of your social media profiles. When there’s a disconnect between your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram profiles, it’s difficult for customers and followers to determine which profiles are official, or if they’re even following the right company. Consistency is crucial. Also make sure all your bios are complete, professional profiles, etc.

# 4 Examine the profiles of similar organizations Taking inventory of what others are doing in your industry can help you find ways to improve your own social profiles. You can learn a lot from those who do it best. You’ll find that a lot of the questions you ask about these influencer accounts are the same questions you asked for your own account. Generally, you will want to know the following: Branding: How does their overall look promote the brand? Can visitors get an accurate sense of their personality or culture? How have they chosen to use images in header and avatar? Popularity: How many followers/likes does the page have? Frequency: How often do they post? What do they do on weekends? Engagement: What is the number of people talking about the brand compared to the number of fans? Types of posts: What topics do they frequently discuss? What types of posts do they use: photos, questions, videos, chats, text? What is engagement like for each of these post types?

Can you “borrow” an idea from them and improve upon it?

You will need to organize your audit findings into a report This report should be professional in nature. It will end up being a part of the final report you present to your client. The report is a highlight of your findings of the audit. It lets the client easily see the highlights of what you found. Graphs will help. So will breaking report up into categories. You are simply presenting findings (you aren’t making recommendations yet) These organizations will want to know what posts work best, what they should be focusing on. Remember to put this in lay terms for them in a summary. Let’s examine this sample report and my feedback: New Chauncey Housing

Consider new platforms New social media channels pop up all the time. You shouldn’t jump on every new app you hear about, but you need to at least be aware of what’s out there. Your audit results may lead in the direction of a new channel.

Create New Objectives & Goals The point of a social media audit is to give organizations a better understanding of where they are currently and to make plans for the future. So the next step is to make a plan of action, which we will get to later.