Social media is the wild wild west. It’s hard to know why one post performs better than another, or how frequently to post or what content is best (video, photos, gifs)…the list goes on. I mean, will the picture of the dog drinking a margarita get more engagement than the video of Kim drinking wine? These are the questions we grapple with every day.
This is where a social media audit comes in. We know an audit can seem daunting, and sometimes it is, but get over it cause it’s important.
Know Your Accounts
There are so many different social media networks these days – do you even know which ones you’re on? This is a legit question we ask our clients, they often don’t realize they have three Twitter accounts and have access to zero of them. Make sure that you have full access and control over all of your accounts.
It’s all too easy to sign up for a new platform with full intentions of crushing it only to let it fizzle out and retire to the forgotten tabs section of your browser.
You don’t need to be on every social platform available. It’s better to be exceptionally good at a few things than mediocre at many things.
Consistency is Important
Your brand should be cohesive across all channels. You’ll want to ensure that your social profile looks and sounds consistent with how you present your brand on your website or through other channels. This includes: logos, brand colors, and voice.
However, if you’re running seasonal campaigns, you may adjust your branding to reflect them. As an example, during the winter holidays, you might see brands trickle in shades of red along with the ever popular Santa hats, and snowflakes.
Know your Audience, Goals, and Key Metrics
That sounds like a lot, we know. We could have approached this portion as three additional steps, but we decided it would be easier to trick you into reading this with five steps instead of eight. 😉 Don’t worry – we’ll skim it down a bit.
Know your audience!
You’ve got to know who your intended audience is, it’s an integral part of creating your presence on social media, developing creative, and developing your strategy. Facebook, Instagram, and other networks have built-in analytics that give you information on who is engaging with your content.
Know your goals!
What are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to grow your following? Expand your reach? Convert followers into website users, which converts to sales? Knowing your goals will help you identify what metrics you should be tracking and how those key metrics impact your business.
Know your key metrics!
Let us reiterate, your goals determine your metrics. If your goal is to increase engagement, you should be tracking your engagement rate and seeing what kind of content is engaged with the most. You want to keep social media content fresh and mix things up, but you also need to piggyback off what’s successful.
See What’s Working and Track Your Results
We touched on this briefly above. Paying attention to what’s working and what’s not is imperative to your social strategy. It can also be useful information for A/B testing to see how far you can stretch a concept before it quits working.
Tracking your results year over year is crucial in knowing what’s working, what’s not, and to identify trends in engagement, reach, demographics and more.
Are you running specific campaigns, paid or organic, as part of your social media strategy? You’ll want to know how much you’ve invested in those campaigns versus how much you gained from them or the positive impact those campaigns made on the company.
Don’t be afraid to pivot your strategy if something isn’t working. Social media is constantly changing.
Rinse & Repeat
It’s valuable to audit your social media channels regularly, preferably quarterly. Auditing regularly ensures your goals are on track, producing your desired results and ROI. Luckily for you, we’ve created a handy social media audit checklist. Go download it, and then thank us later.
Need more help? You know where to find us (try the contact page or any of our social channels).
