Over the past few months, I’ve had numerous conversations with small enterprise entrepreneurs and solopreneurs who are grappling with their social media presence. When conducting audits for them, we consistently uncovered two major issues:
- Lack of awareness: Stemming from inconsistencies in posting frequency, content types, and branding.
- Lack of engagement and conversions: Due to a misunderstanding of platform dynamics and unrealistic expectations.
If you’re facing similar challenges, fear not. Below is a concise guide to help you conduct your own social media audit and address these issues effectively.
Pre-Requisite of Audit!
Before diving into the intricacies of a social media audit, it’s essential to establish a solid foundation by comprehensively understanding your audience. Your audience is not just a faceless mass of consumers but a diverse group of individuals with unique preferences, interests, and behaviors. Conduct thorough research to create detailed audience personas representing different segments. Analyze their online behavior, preferences, and engagement patterns across various platforms. Utilize social listening tools to monitor conversations, sentiment, and trends related to your brand and industry. By understanding your audience’s likes, dislikes, and behavior, you can tailor your social media strategy effectively to engage with them and achieve your business objectives.
Now, let’s break down the steps to conduct an effective social media audit:
Step 1: List Your Social Media Profiles:
Start by creating a comprehensive list of all your social media profiles. Include platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, YouTube, and any others relevant to your brand.
Checkpoint 1: See through the lens of your customers – will they like to discover your brand, on these platforms? It’s time you stop working on the ones which are not relevant
Step 2: Review Profile Consistency and Branding:
Ensure that your profiles are on-brand, consistent, and filled out. Check profile images, cover photos, bios, and contact information. Consistent branding helps reinforce your identity across platforms.
Checkpoint 2: Is your bio the crux of your vision? Are your contact and other links working? If I am coming to your social page for the first time, will I understand your business? If you are unable to guess this show it to a friend.
Step 3: Analyze Channel Performance:
Let’s deep dive into numbers. Check in the last 3 months what has been engagement rates, follower growth, reach, impressions, & Leads. If you are running an ad then look into your CTR (Click Through Rate) Identify which channels are most effective in reaching your target audience and contributing to your business goals.
Checkpoint 3: These metrics will tell you whether your channel is correct, is your content correct… Mostly social channel connect is to create awareness for your brand. The sale might happen later. Hence, we always advise that engagement is much more important than followers.
Step 4 : Dive into Audience Insights:
Explore audience demographics for each channel. Understand who your followers are, their interests, and behaviors. If there has been any purchase feel free to call and ask them who they are and where are they from, this will help you a lot in strategy.
Checkpoint 4: Use this information to tailor your content and engagement strategies to better resonate with your audience.
Step 5 : Assess Competitor Activity:
Analyze your competitors’ social media presence. What platforms are they active on? How do they engage with their audience?
Checkpoint 5: Learn from the successes & mistakes of others to refine your strategy.
Step 6 : Set Clear Goals:
Define specific goals for your social media efforts. Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, drive website traffic, or boost sales? Your audit should align with these goals and help you measure progress.
Checkpoint 6: make these objectives for the next 6 months. Put a plan in line and see them through your next deep audit should be after 6 months.
Pro Tip : In addition to these steps, consider leveraging third-party tools and resources to gather further insights and streamline the audit process. Tools such as Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and Google Analytics can provide valuable data and analytics to inform your audit findings.
If this seems overwhelming to you, but you feel like your social media efforts are yielding little results, don’t hesitate to reach out.
