What is a Social Media Audit?

By SARAH BEST

A social media audit is a comprehensive assessment of a social media program against a set of criteria such as benchmarks and best practices, competitors, and marketing and business goals.

Evaluating the metrics for your social media account for KPIs is one piece of the puzzle; but it’s a smaller piece than you would think. We recommend taking a holistic approach that encompasses the following:

1. Establish your vision

Social media vision statements can help inspire your team, communicate your goals to key internal stakeholders, and are a good filter for understanding whether a campaign or tactic is relevant. We discover a vision by interviewing key staff members.

2. Evaluate your team's workflow

Often, the roadblocks to achieving success with a social program are not how social media content is  written, or how a campaign is planned, but how teams work together.

For example, one common workflow challenge that we see, is that people within a business or organization are delivering content to a social media manager at the last minute. That prevents the social media manager from addressing their needs in a way that is strategic and part of a coherent social media vision. 

​Read more the 7 common pitfalls of social media workflow.

3. Evaluate your company's competitors

It’s important to take a look at what your competitors and peers are doing and to see whether there might be any holes in your own program, or areas that none of your competitors are currently taking advantage of.

4. Understand your customer decision-making process

Knowing who your target audiences are, and keeping them top of mind, is critical when you are thinking about whether you’re maintaining a presence on the correct social media channels, whether you’ve set the right editorial tone, and whether you’re making the content that best supports your customer’s decision making process.

Sarah Best

Founder / Principal of Sarah Best Strategy, a boutique agency that makes social media work for you.  Award-wining social media strategy, social media advertising, content strategy & marketing consulting services. Follow us on Facebook, connect with me on Linkedin.
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