Social media may be one marketing channel, but with multiple platforms, it’s a lot to juggle. Conducting regular social media audits can help prevent profiles from losing their vitality—or, on the other end of the spectrum, taking on a life of their own.
Here’s a six-step social media audit—built around a template—you can use to maintain accuracy, improve security, control brand consistency, and guide data-driven decisions.
Contents
? Download the Copy & Paste Social Media Calendar for a year’s worth of social media post ideas.
The 6-step social media audit and template
A good audit can help you improve your social media optimization, but getting started may feel a little daunting. So, I’ve put together a handy spreadsheet template. It’s divided into tabs, one for each aspect of the audit. I find that separating the information and action items makes them more digestible.
Here’s what each tab is for:
- Profiles
- Content
- Audience
- Performance
- Competitive Analysis Option 1
- Competitive Analysis Option 2
Open and create a copy of the template here so you can work along with this guide.
Step 1: The social media access audit
The first step is to get the logistical details laid out. Get a spreadsheet going and list out your accounts across all the major social media platforms. For example:
- X
- YouTube
- TikTok
Then, create columns for:
- Link to profile
- Handle
- Login information
- Who has access
Use this information to verify appropriate access and ownership. For example, it’ll show that you can actually get into your YouTube account and that Joe Schmoe, who left the company four years ago, doesn’t still have admin access.
Step 2: The social media profile audit
The content portion of your social media audit is used to ensure accuracy, consistency, and functionality. There are three areas to consider.
Accuracy. Is all of your profile information accurate and updated? Is it consistent across platforms? Look at:
- Bio/description (bio ideas here!)
- Profile picture
- Cover photo
- Contact information
Consistency. What kind of shape is your branding in? Are you doing a good job differentiating your brand voice from competitors while keeping it consistent across platforms? Consider the following:
- Tone
- Visuals
- Overall messaging
Functionality. And finally, is your profile actionable? The performance section of the audit will cover how effective and engaging it is. This part is geared toward general calls to action (CTA). Look at:
? Free guide>> The 42 Best Call to Action Phrases Ever (& Why They Work)
Step 3: The social media audience audit
Next, it’s time to examine your audiences on each platform. This will help you ensure that your content is attracting the right people and, if so, that you’re tailoring it accordingly.
Demographics. The native analytics within each platform should suffice here. Demographics include:
- Age
- Gender
- Location
- Interests
Here’s an example of LinkedIn demographic insights.
Personas. You’ll have to identify this one manually. Who among your marketing personas is engaging with your content? Notice how I said “marketing” personas, not “customer” personas. Your social media pages attract a variety of engagement. What percentage of them are:
- Leads
- Customers
- Influencers
- Partners
- Employees
Sentiment. Now, look at how they’re engaging with your content. You can dive deeper into metrics in the next section, this is just to get an idea of the overall vibe of your social media communities. For example:
- Are customers using your profile or page as a way to get support, complain, give feedback, get company updates, educate themselves, or be entertained?
- Do partners and influencers notice and reciprocate when you engage with their content or mention them?
- Is the overall feel mostly positive, negative, or neutral?
Step 4: The social media performance audit
Here is where you’ll dive into the data to get clear insights. Keep in mind that quality is more important than quantity. It’s better to have fewer followers who engage with your content and promote your business than a massive audience that doesn’t even know who you are.
With the numbers, you can compare platforms and post types and set goals so that you’re always moving forward and upward.
Engagement. Here are some social media metrics to look at, which you will need for the next two bullets:
- Followers
- Following
- Likes
- Reach
- Impressions
- Comments
- Shares
- Engagement rate
- Click-through rates
Content. Most platforms will give you both overall and individual post performance numbers. Use them to identify things like:
- Best post format: Text only, text + link, text + image, video, or gif
- Best post length: Short, medium, or long?
- Best content source: Your content or others’
- Best time to post
- Best topics
Tools like Buffer can help you uncover these insights.
And on that note, you might also want to check out my content audit templates.
Step 5: The social media competitive analysis
If you want to take your social media audit to another level, throw a competitive analysis in there. It’s important to stay on top of what your competitors are doing so you can maintain your differentiation from them and also steal ideas (that you should always adapt to your business, of course).
I created two templates for this. The first compares your business to multiple competitors on one channel at a time:
The second is to compare your business to just one competitor on multiple channels:
Whichever approach you choose, some things to consider for your audit include:
- Followers
- Following
- Link to profile
- Target audience
- Strengths
- Weaknesses
Check out my competitive analysis templates for more tips on this portion of your audit.
Step 6: The social media action item list
The information in the audit will give you a clear picture of the strengths you can scale and the weaknesses that need improvement. Each tab in the sheet has a column for action items. Here are a few tips on creating and completing them:
- Assign a clear owner. Otherwise, it won’t get done!
- Set measurable goals. For example, “increase followers by 10% in three months,” or “improve engagement rate by 5%.” We’ve got you covered in this post on social media goals.
- Create clear action items. Instead of “improve posts,” get more specific. For example, “Write longer posts with bullet points” or “Experiment with carousel posts.”
Here are some ideas to help guide your goals and action items:
You can get more ideas with these quick social media marketing tips.
Run regular social media audits
No social media marketing strategy is complete without regular social media audits. And with the tips and template I’ve provided in this post, you’ll gain the insights you need to fuel your strategy.
Let me close with some final tips:
- Audit your social profiles quarterly to stay aligned with trends, your audience, and your business.
- Look at tools like Hootsuite, Sendible, or Sprout Social to streamline the process.
- Consider adding a summary tab to surface the most compelling or prominent information to leadership or other departments.
Alright, you are officially equipped to run an impressive social media audit…get after it!
