Finding that your social media growth and engagement have stagnated? Do you need a more solid conversion strategy on your platforms?
Performing a social media audit can help you forge a clear and concise plan for your pages and ultimately facilitate more interaction with your brand. This article will show you how to analyze your and competitors’ social media profiles, strategies, and performance.
Why Do You Need to Do a Social Media Audit?
Social media engagement can be a tough nut to crack, but one that can lead to better brand recognition if done well. A social media audit helps you understand what’s working with your pages – and what can be improved.
The audit also checks how your competitors are fairing, too. Noting the elements working on their social media pages can provide valuable insight into bettering your presence.
What Do You Need To Perform a Social Media Audit?
There isn’t much needed to perform a social media audit. You’ll only need at least one active social media page (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) and at least a months worth of content on them.
Why Are Social Media Audits So Important?
Considering that social media is so widely used, it has become an integral part of a digital marketing strategy. Audits are performed just like other business areas to ensure that your brand’s presence shines as bright as it can.
The Where, When, and Who of a Social Media Audit
Let’s begin the social media audit process by answering some of the most frequently asked questions!
Where is a Social Media Audit Performed?
You’ll perform your social media audit in 4 different places. Those being your web browser, social media profiles, Buzzsumo (popular content analyzer), and a spreadsheet.
When is a Social Media Audit Done?
Social media audits should be performed before you design your social media and digital marketing strategies.
Who is Responsible for the Social Media Audit
Either you, your social media manager or your hired digital marketing agency should take responsibility for the social media audit.
Beginning Your Social Media Audit
Now you’ve got the foundations laid down for a social media audit – let’s begin! You’ll only need to start by opening up the Social Media Audit Worksheet found here and make a copy for yourself.
Let's Build Your Social Media Audit Report Step-by-Step
The process of creating a social media audit report is found below.
1. Open up the Social Media Audit Worksheet mentioned in the beginning section.
You can save it with a unique file name that defines the time the audit took place or its purpose.
2. Go to where it says, ‘Social Media Audit Report.’
Here you’ll be inputting data relating to your social media accounts.
3. Depending on how many social media accounts your business has, you’re going to want to repeat this following process for each one.
Whether you have one social media account or ten, you’ll need to collect data from each one to complete the audit. For example, you’ll repeat the below process for each of your Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.
- Complete the ‘Basic Information’ fields in the worksheet.
- Account URL – Find the page address in your browser’s URL bar. Copy and paste it into this field. It should read something like ‘https://facebook.com/mysocialmediapage.’
- Handle / Name / Title – This is the name that you have given your social media account. For example, a Twitter handle will be @mysocialmediapage. Copy and paste into the data field on the spreadsheet.
- Description – Most of your social media pages will have an option for a short bio. Copy and paste what you’ve written from the page into this field.
- Listed URL – You’ve likely made a link available to your social media page to your brand’s website or other content. Copy and paste that URL into this field.
- Profile Image – Save the profile image you’ve used locally on your computer, then paste it into this spreadsheet cell.
- Cover Image – Repeat the profile image step for any social media pages that offer cover photos. Not everyone has this option, so skip if it doesn’t.
- Next, fill in the ‘Audience’ fields of the worksheet. You’ll want to update this regularly, considering the numbers will change frequently.
- Following – Input the number of accounts this page follows.
- Followers – Put in the number of followers that this page has.
- Follower Monthly Growth – Calculate how many users started following this page in the last month. If you are using this spreadsheet for multiple audits, don’t delete the previously inputted number. Use it so you can monitor how many people start following you month on month.
- Now for the ‘Content/Engagement’ section!
- Objective – Write in this field what the overall aim is of this social media page. That could be something like news posts and tips about your products and services. Maybe providing entertainment to your fanbase? Engaging users to interact with your product? Have a think and add your thoughts into the cell.
- Last Post – Input the date on which you last posted a piece of content.
- Posting Frequency – How often are you posting on this social media page? Frequently, often, occasionally, rarely? Write in the cell what your posting frequency is, considering all your past posts as well.
- Average Post Engagement – You won’t need to do a thorough analysis here. However, add a rough number of how many likes, shares, and comments your posts get on average.
- Sentiment Notes – This field is to gauge how users are responding to your social media content. Are the comments positive when you post something? Is it met with a more concerned reaction? Whatever the general feeling is, note that down.
- Finally, complete the ‘Performance/Value’ area of the worksheet. You’ll need to access Google Analytics to get the data for this part.
- Organic Referral Traffic – Write in the number of organic visitors to your website from this social media page.
- Paid Referral Traffic – If you had any paid advertising campaigns on this social media channel, input the number of visitors your website obtained from the ads.
- Organic Conversions – How many people purchased your product or service by arriving at your website organically from the social media page? Put this number in here.
- Organic Conversion Rate – What is the conversion rate between the number of organic social media visitors and those who purchase your products? Add that statistic here.
- Paid Conversions – Enter the number of users who purchased products or services from a paid advertising campaign on your social media page.
- Paid Conversion Rate – Input the conversion rate between your paid referral traffic and paid-for conversions.
- Conversion Value – Here, you’ll analyze the value that you’re getting out of your social media pages. That doesn’t have to be limited to the cash earnings that come from this channel. It could also be newsletter signups or website registrations. Whatever statistic you believe is benefitting your brand should be put here.
- Notes – Add in any additional notes about this social media channel.
Let's Wrap Up Your Social Media Audit by Doing a Competitive Analysis
No audit is complete without looking at your competitors! Let’s fill the rest of the worksheet by seeing how your competition’s social media is doing.
1. Bring your Social Media Audit Worksheet back up.
Open up the spreadsheet you used to do your own social media audit.
2. Open the sheet entitled ‘Competitive Analysis.’
Hit the competitive analysis tab, where you’ll find data fields to input about your competitors.
3. Choose a few competitors that are most similar to your business, then repeat the audit steps for their social media pages.
Only a handful of your closest competitors will do for the audit – maybe 5 maximum. Do pick the ones that have the most similar offerings to your brand. Once you’ve chosen those, go through the exact same steps found in the audit process above for each competitor.
4. You don’t need to review every one of their social media pages but look at the ones your business is running.
Not every competitor will be running the same social media pages as you – they may have more or fewer channels. You don’t need to do a complete audit of all their social media. Cover the ones that your business is using.
5. This bit of the spreadsheet doesn’t contain a ‘Performance/Value’ section.
Because you won’t have access to your competitor’s Google Analytics data, you can’t input any data about their performance.
6. Review your competitor’s most popular content on the ‘Activity/Content’ area.
The final part of the competitor analysis is to discover what content is finding a noticeable engagement. This can help shape future posts for your brand to grab attention. BuzzSumo is one of the best tools to accomplish this investigation, carried out as below:
- Head to BuzzSumo.com to analyze. The platform has limited features without a subscription, but this article only uses the free functionality.
- Paste your competitor’s URL in the search bar.
- Check the column that contains content with the social media channel you’re currently working on. Choose the one that has the most shares/engagement.
- Paste the piece of content into your spreadsheet
And Your Social Media Audit is Complete!
It’s as easy as that! All the data you’ve harnessed from the audit can now assist in shaping your digital marketing strategies. It can also contribute to crucial decision-making and help boost engagements and conversion rates.
Taking the time to perform these social media audits regularly is recommended. This is considering the positive impact they can have on your brand and ultimately raise your earning potential.
Conclusion
Whenever you feel your social media pages could do better – give them an audit! It may take a little bit of time out of your busy schedule, but the rewards make the process worth it in the end.