A step-by-step guide to help you conduct the perfect social media marketing audit
Coschedule, an all-in-one platform for planning, executing and organizing content marketing, found out in one of their studies that a well-informed, updated digital marketing strategy is capable of gaining 538% more success as compared to a business that doesn’t work on their strategy eloquently.
A marketing audit is a systematic analysis of the functionality of a business. With the focus on internal and external processes of the organization, marketing audits help in breaking down every part of a business’ strategy while highlighting the problem areas that need to be worked on, as well as the areas that are performing well with consistency.
Not only is a marketing audit capable of analysing your brand’s features thoroughly, but it also helps you in keeping your business updated in the competitive landscape. If you are unaware of where your business stands according to the digital marketing standards, you will not be able to make your business rise to the top of Google SERPs.
Social media marketing audit – what is it and how do you do it?
Similar to the digital marketing audit, the social media marketing audit helps you understand your problem areas concerning social media. To be specific, a social media audit will help you identify the following:
- What are your problem areas? Are certain captions not working out as well as you expected them to? Or are you not using the right hashtags?
- Are there other imposter accounts that are trying to take advantage of your brand’s name? If you haven’t established your social media accounts already, there’s a possibility that your business’ name hasn’t been taken up by an imposter.
- Had you set up social media accounts for your business back when you started? Have you forgotten all about it now? If there are prior accounts that have been set up with your business’ name, you might want to go back and get rid of them and/or update them.
- Have you given the spotlight to every opportunity that’s available in the digital market to help you grow? With every passing day, there’s a new opportunity available for you – it’s time you take it.
The step-by-step process of setting up a social media marketing audit
1. Begin by tracing the social media accounts you own – and the ones you should
As we mentioned in our reasons for carrying out a social media marketing audit before, one can never be too certain about the accounts you own. While there might be accounts that you had set up during the starting days of your business (that you never worked on), there might also be imposter accounts in the digital network.
To build a plan of success, you need to begin by setting up unified accounts for your brand. Build one master account, give the password to the respective team members and allow them to take over.
While you carry out your audit over the digital network, note down the accounts that your business doesn’t own (that you know of, at least). It’s important to note that team members might have set up your social media accounts – note down the usernames that you are sure are not connected to your business and the audit can be carried out from then on.
2. Once you’ve figured that out, it’s time to work on your business plan
After you’re done tracing all your old/imposter accounts, you can begin by auditing your old posts and social media accounts. What did you do wrong? Where did your social media accounts fall short? Moreover, what are your competitors doing differently that’s allowing them to be discovered?
As a business, you need to know that the ultimate goal of building your social media accounts is to build brand awareness whilst also being more convenient to reach out to from the eyes of the customers. For example, Netflix, Wendy’s and many other businesses use their accounts for more than just simple promotion.
If you check out the Twitter accounts of these brands, you will see a mix of modern humour, as well as customer queries being responded to. Social media makes even the grandest of companies more approachable, which is why social media is so important.
Based on this and the audit that you perform on your old social media accounts and posts, you can begin working out the ideal business plan.
3. Consistency is what builds a brand to be recognizable
Look back and think about the social media accounts that you’ve viewed for references. You might have noticed that all brands keep their bios, profile pictures, brand names/usernames, links and pinned posts consistent. But why?
Simply put, this helps in building a consistent brand image in the eyes of the consumer. If your business is being followed by the same user on multiple platforms, keeping a different profile picture, bio or brand name might leave them confused and unsure of the fact whether the profile belongs to the same business.
When you keep your profile consistent on all social media platforms, be it Facebook, Twitter or even Instagram, you’re able to manage the image of your brand with consistency, making it easy for your customers to be sure about your brand’s verification. It’s always beneficial to opt for a brand verification with the help of a blue tick.
4. Recognise the posts that work and the ones that don’t
While auditing your social media accounts, you will realise the importance of managing your feed. Whether it be based on aesthetics, informative posts or more, you need to be certain that your feed on Instagram and Facebook is consistent and well-maintained.
When you’re certain about the feed pattern, you will be able to identify which posts no longer fit into your feed pattern. Track down the posts with low engagement and understand why they didn’t work as well as the others. Whilst doing so, trace the posts that have managed to gain the highest amount of attention as well – what did you do differently that allowed these particular posts to be so well discovered? Was it the aesthetic or the hashtags? Or was it the post caption that allowed it to be recognized?
5. Different platforms need different posts
Once you’re done with your social media audit, you will realise that every platform needs a different kind of post. For example, Instagram’s posts are more picture-centric – which means, your photo or video needs to stand out as compared to the caption on the respective post.
On the other hand, Facebook needs more informative captions than Instagram. Depending on the audience available on every platform, you need to build your posts to cater to different demographics on different platforms.
Author Bio
Kiara McColl is a content manager at Clickmatix digital marketing agency, where she gets to do what she loves doing- writing and managing content with smart digital marketers in the company. She also has expertise in web marketing, search engine optimisation, social media, affiliate marketing. Her strong passion for technology always drives her to explore the changing trends in the digital industry and making people know about it through her blogs.
