By 2021 , the number of social media users worldwide will surpass3 billion.
This is more than a third the Earth's population.
This creates an amazing opportunity to reach online users and you should not pass it up.
But not all platforms work for every business. It's crucial to evaluate what works and what doesn't.
You risk losing time, energy and money by running flawed campaigns.
Don't worry. Social media audits are a great way to help.
This post will show you how to do a social media audit in 30 minutes.
This will show you whether you are on track to make it big, or if your chances of losing more money are high.
Let's start with the preparation of your audit.
Auditing can be intimidating.
I have worked with agencies that charge thousands of dollars for a single audit and take months to complete.
Yours will be quite simple in this instance. To gauge progress, we'll look at each platform.
What is the best frequency to perform an audit?
You can do them as many times as you want. I recommend doing them at least once per year, but it's great to do them every quarter.
It is important that you do it consistently in a way that you find comfortable.
To keep track of all the information that you will be collecting, I recommend using a spreadsheet. Google Drive is a great tool to keep track of all your information. Here's how you can do one.
Create a new Google Sheets by pulling up Google Drive
Google Drive is my favorite tool because it allows me to share files with my team and partners as well as other vendors.
Next, label the columns.
These categories will include key performance indicators and account information.
What should your columns include? Here are some suggestions:
- You will need the username and URL of each platform you are going to audit.
- Each account's number of followers
- Metrics of engagement
- Demographic information
- Popular content
These provide a good base from which to work. This is how my spreadsheet looks now.
It looks a little empty, right? We can fix it by entering our account information.
I suggest adding monthly sections or a date to your audits. This allows you to track monthly changes and helps you audit again later.
Each platform is unique so you can add columns to track network-specific metrics.
This template will allow you to create your auditing spreadsheet. It's now time to get to work.
This video will show you how to analyze Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram. Add to your spreadsheet any social media platforms such as TikTok and other niche ones.
Social Media Audit: Facebook
Facebook stores a lot of information about your Pages, and then organizes it all in one place. It is accessible via the Facebook Business Suite.
Facebook offers valuable insights on both your advertising accounts and your business Page.
We'll be focusing today on social media in general, so let's start with an overview.
Facebook immediately displays information about Page likes, reach and engagement. Filter the results by today, yesterday or the past seven days.
Next, click on the arrow at the top of your Page to view a breakdown of the most successful posts.
This will give you an indication of which type of content is most engaging and reaching the most people. Let's now go back to the spreadsheet and fill in this information.
It should look like this:
As you can see, it has been entered how many followers I have, how much engagement I have improved and which content has performed best.
How about demographics?
You will need to go to the insights tab. Click on this to see a list of all Pages that you have run.
Click on the Page that you want to audit and it will take your to an overview.
Click “results” to see the number of people you reached. If you have connected your Instagram account, this will show you how many people you reached.
You will also see:
- The proportion of women who follow you.
- The percentage of users within each age group.
- What countries and cities are your followers from?
- Which other pages do they like?
Market differently to each target audience. You should take note of the genders, age groups and locations of your most loyal fans.
This data can be used later to tailor content. Let's first input some data into our spreadsheet.
This simple Facebook audit should give you a clear idea of your target audience and the content they love.
If you choose to audit your Page again you can compare the metrics with the current ones to see how content performs.
Pinterest Social Media Audit
Pinterest is a great resource for marketers.
This platform rewards visual content and quality infographics. You can also access amazing analytics pages.
After you have upgraded to the free account for business, you will be able to select “Analytics”, and “Overview” in the upper-left corner.
This overview will show you your average daily views, most popular content, and average daily impressions. These metrics can be used to measure your account's growth.
We saw this with Facebook. Understanding what content is most popular will allow you to offer more of it. This will increase engagement and pins.
What type of content is most effective for your site?
Click the arrow next to “People you reach” to see the demographics for your Pinterest followers.
Information about the location, gender, language, and age of the person will be provided.
Clicking on the tab “Interests”, you can see which categories your followers are most interested in.
These numbers should be noted in your spreadsheet. These categories could be used to publish additional content in the future.
On the “Profile”, page, you'll also be able to see your impressions and saves.
Clicks and saves are perhaps the most important metrics.
You can see which posts are most popular by analyzing which ones users have saved the most. This will help you decide which content you should focus on and which one to return to.
It will also reveal which pins drive the most traffic towards your website.
The “All-time tab” will show you which pins have received the most shares and are ranked highest in searches.
Are there any commonalities between the pins receiving the most feedback? This information can be noted in your spreadsheet.
Make sure to note any important information in your spreadsheet. Your spreadsheet should now look quite professional.
Social Media Audit:Instagram
Instagram is the most popular social media platform for fashion and beauty brands.
Instagram already has more than a billion users. Instagram is also used by more than 200 million companies to reach customers.
Instagram Insights is available to business accounts that have at least 100 followers. This is the native analytics tool that helps you measure performance.
While it won't provide insight into content you have already posted, it will provide information about the posts you have made since then. You can only access it from your smartphone.
Tap the hamburger menu in the upper-right corner (the three lines).
Next, tap Insights.
The Insights homepage will provide a comprehensive overview of your Instagram account. This first overview of content includes Stories and posts.
You will also find three tabs: activity, content, and audience. The audience tab will give you information about your followers and their demographics.
Click “See More” in the upper-right corner to learn more about your followers. This will bring up two graphs.
One will tell you when your followers are most active.
The other will show you which days they are most active.
This can be used to determine the best time and day to post.
Check out Instagram posts
It's also a good idea to evaluate how your photos perform. This can be done in one of two ways.
First, select a post and click “View insights.”
You will see your likes, comments and shares at the top. Instagram will also show you how many profiles visited the post and your reach.
You can use hashtags to market your Instagram account. Take the time to find the ones that are most popular.
If you like, consider adding it to your spreadsheet.
You will eventually be able remove the less-performing hashtags from your feed and replace them by better ones.
You can also navigate to the Insights homepage's posts section.
Click “Content” to display all posts from the past year, and their impressions.
Further filters can be made by setting time and content type, as well as measurements like comments or likes.
This can be done in many ways.
You can filter by content, for example, to find out if your audience prefers videos, photos, or carousel post the most.
You might notice which questions or captions get the most responses if you reduce it to comments.
Check out Instagram Stories
Do you have an Instagram Story?
It's a great way for businesses to show their followers behind-the scenes action.
The Insights tool allows you to see how Stories are performing. Click the viewer button in the bottom-left corner of the screen to open a Story.
It will show you which users saw the Story, how many impressions they received, and what reach. It also records actions such as clicks and replies.
This will help you determine which Instagram Stories content is most popular with your followers.
Twitter Social Media Audit
Twitter advertising has been one of my favourite techniques to quickly gain attention. It's so easy.
You can access your account's analytics by visiting the Ads Manager.
Let's begin by clicking the “Analytics” drop-down menu, then click “tweet activities.” This will allow you to view impressions and tweet engagement.
Twitter allows you to view a graph showing your impressions for the past 28 days. This can be changed to show the last 7 days or a custom number.
To see which tweets from a particular period are most popular, click the “Top Twitters” tab. This is determined by engagement and impressions.
Are you noticing any trends?
Do some calls-to-action and tweet styles do better than others?
These are the questions that you should ask to complete the audit.
Are you able to identify your followers?
You can find out more by clicking on “Audience insights” again under the “Analytics” tab.
You should make sure to change the selection for your followers.
At first glance you will see a summary with many tabs.
You can view information about your followers on the first page.
- Interests
- Styles for consumers
- Categories of income for households
- Wireless carrier
- Gender
Click the “Demographics” tab to see the following:
Twitter boasts an impressive analytics system. It's also very convenient.
You won't be able to tell everything about your followers, from exact locations to home values.
You can now see their lifestyle preferences by moving on to the “Lifestyle tab”. This information is invaluable for customizing your content.
You can incorporate their preferences into your posts if you are aware of them.
Your brand will make them feel more connected to you if they understand you on a deeper level.
You will find an extra benefit for those involved in ecommerce by clicking the “Consumer Behavior” tab.
Twitter allows us to see which consumer buying style our followers follow and what type of consumer goods they like to buy.
If you sell products online, this is a great opportunity.
It is literally telling you what your customers prefer to shop for and what they are looking for.
The “Mobile Footprint”, tab will tell you which device and carrier your followers use most.
What should you do with your Social Media Audit after it's completed?
Now you're sitting back admiring your detailed spreadsheet. What now?
It is time to market.
There is a lot of data you have now that you can use for improving your social channels and overall business.
should be paired with content.
What kind of content is most popular with your audience? This content can be produced more often and you can measure the results next week, or next month.
You might find that Facebook users prefer videos to images. It's as easy as it sounds: Increasing the number of videos you upload could help increase engagement and shares.
This video was recently shared on Facebook
This was the direct result of a simple audit on social media like this.
Video marketing is something I am investing heavily in because it has the best results on almost all platforms.
“Finding your passion” is something I don't usually talk about. I prefer to stick with nerdy marketing strategies.
But, I have noticed an amazing reaction to more personal topics such as this.
What's the deal?
I am adding topics like these to my content calendar.
This content was created to increase awareness and engagement.
is not to try and sell anything.
Mixing content types and topics is a better way to generate the maximum interest.
You can then run retargeting ads with custom audience and eventually sell to anyone who is watching, commenting, or hitting the Like button.
A more defined audience is better
You now have a lot more information about your fans' demographics thanks to all the research you did.
Concrete things like location, gender, age and gender are more important.
You probably had an idea of your ideal user at the beginning. You now know the truth.
I recommend looking for market reports that are based on your target population. These reports will provide you with additional ideas about how to best serve them.
Even infographics such as this one by Goldman Sachs about millennials can provide valuable information about your audience.
This example might be used to inspire us to offer free shipping, discounts or any other convenience that the studies recommend.
It's easy to determine what works for your users once you have all the data.
Reports and other similar publications will provide information about trends and opportunities that can be taken advantage of.
You can expect new sales channels and exciting promotional strategies.
You know your ideal user's preferences so that you can create more content.
Do more with less
Now you can also identify which platforms deliver the best results.
This information can be used to implement the “80/20 rule”.
This means that you should double the number of social networks that work best for your needs.
Maybe Instagram and Facebook drive most traffic. If this is the case, then you should focus your attention on these platforms.
Diversifying your efforts may produce more results than diversifying.
This applies to advertisements and content. This is because the data tells you what works best. You might consider focusing your attention on a few areas.
You can also use this time to try out other platforms. You will never know unless you give it a shot.
You don't know if another social network could perform as well, so you haven't tried it.
It is possible to test the couple on a smaller scale before investing too much time.
Also, you should now set goals for your social media accounts.
- Follower count
- Engagement numbers, such as comments or likes
- Traffic you drive to your site
You should be able do another audit faster. This will allow you to streamline the process by becoming more familiar with it.
You can track the changes in your data by comparing it to previous audits.
You will see how your social media accounts develop over time.
Are you including ads in your social-media marketing strategy?
You should make them part of your audit.
For example, Facebook and Pinterest have ad platforms that track the performance, costs and other metrics of the ads you run.
Analyze which ad types or creatives bring you the best results. These ad types and creatives could be worth more than others.
You can save money by not spending on ads that aren't delivering the best value.
You can even do small experiments with paid advertising campaigns to help you calibrate your organic efforts.
For the exact same reason, I incorporate SEO and PPC.
To find keywords that are most profitable within a particular industry, I launch a PPC campaign. Next, I will start creating content and SEO campaigns based on this data.
Social media is no different. To quickly identify the top content and audiences, run paid campaigns. Next, you can tailor your organic efforts to what is already working.
Social Media Audit: Commonly Asked Questions
To find out what's working and what's not in your social media strategy.
You should consider changing your strategy at least once per year.
No. They can be very helpful but they are not necessary. However, you can use the social media tools to help with your audit.
Social media audits can help you identify strengths, weaknesses, as well as opportunities in your social media strategies. It can be used to reach a defined audience, improve your social-media strategy, and work harder, not smarter.
Conclusion of the Social Media Audit
An audit of social media doesn't need to be tedious or long.
Follow the steps I have outlined here and you will be able to complete yours in 30 minutes.
Each social media platform provides insights and analytics that will help you improve your social media marketing strategy.
A successful audit requires organization and preparation. A simple spreadsheet can be very useful.
Keep track of the changes in these numbers over time. This will allow you to draw conclusions about which numbers are working well and which ones are not.
You can also set a schedule for your audits. These audits could be performed on a weekly basis, monthly basis, or quarterly.
Try new social media platforms and don't be afraid of trying them out. These can be added to your next audit.
You'll see a steady increase in your social media accounts if you set goals based upon the data collected.
What do YOU consider the most important component of a social media audit.
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By: Neil Patel
Title: How to Conduct a Social Media Audit in Just 30 Minutes
Sourced From: neilpatel.com/blog/social-media-audit/
Published Date: Fri, 17 Sep 2021 18:00:00 +0000