The importance of a social media audit and how to run one

So you’re weeks - maybe even months into your social media campaign and things aren’t going exactly the way you’d hoped…

Maybe your engagement rate has dropped massively, or the campaign is having no real effect on conversions. Are your followers dropping like flies? 

It might be time to run a social media audit and work out exactly what’s going on. 

What's a social media audit? 

A social media audit is the process of examining your current campaign to help you understand the state and success of your social media presence. 

Running an audit includes taking a closer look at certain metrics and KPI’s like the demographic of your target audience, engagement, post performance and more! 

As time consuming as it might be, doing this means you’ll no longer have to wonder what your most effective platform is, you’ll know exactly what your audience has been loving so far and what they haven’t been interested in as well as who they are, what’s actually been growing your brand and how you can move forward. 

So let’s get going - your social media campaign isn’t going to save itself! 

Here’s what you should do 

Running an audit can feel complicated but all tears can be avoided as long as you start small! Start by listing all your social channels and creating a spreadsheet so that you have all the information collected in one place. 

Decide what your key metrics are going to be for this report. Which KPI’s will you be looking at when it comes to each channel and how well they’re doing? You could track the impressions, likes, engagement rate, comments or shares. 

I would suggest choosing 3 main metrics to track to keep everything easy to understand. The engagement rate, click through rate and conversion rate are in my opinion the most important to track. 

The engagement rate will show you if your content is catching people’s attention and what kind of topics your target audience are really resonating with. 

The click through rate will ultimately double down on what the engagement rate shows you, whether or not people are interested enough to click your posts and read your articles. 

Personally, the conversion rate is king because it tells you if your marketing efforts are working at all. At the end of the day, you’re not making content just because it’s fun and you get to use pretty colours - it’s to create some brand awareness and convince people who come across your startup to sign up to that link or buy that product. 

The next thing you should do is identify your top posts! 

According to the metrics you’ve chosen, what posts did the best on each platform? Analyse each post. What’s different about the graphic in comparison to other content that you’ve posted before? Is the tone of voice in the caption different? 

If so, it might be time to re-evaluate the tone of voice! You may think that your target audience wants to hear from you in a specific way but in practice, they might prefer a completely opposite approach. 

Just recently I switched up the way I wrote captions for our posts on Rbbl’s social channels, opting for a simplified straight-to-the-point approach instead of the usual conversational tone and the engagement rate ended up increasing a little bit! 

It’s all trial and error so don’t be afraid to try something different, especially if you’re in the beginning stages. 

It’s also important to ask yourself some key questions: 

• When it comes to your top posts, is the reaction the same across all platforms or do these posts perform differently between each one? 
• What type of post is it? Is it strictly text? Is it text and photo? Are you just sharing a link with a small caption? 
• If this post was collaborative and featuring another company or guest, did that guest’s network increase the engagement?

Evaluate each channel’s performance - this is an important step in figuring out which accounts are actually making an impact on your startup and if it’s contributing to your marketing goals at all. 

Stating the purpose for each channel is extremely helpful as it gives you something to hold each channel up against. For example, for Instagram the purpose of using that channel could be to drive people to the website. 

If you’re not seeing any conversions from Instagram ie, people aren’t clicking the link to your website even though you’re making content that’s nudging your audience towards this - it might be worth revamping your content or getting rid of Instagram as an option all together! 

Doing this for each one will give you a lot of clarity and light up the way for what you should do next in order to achieve your purpose for each channel. 

You can also write down information like how many web page visits came from Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram. 

The next step focuses on understanding your audience across all platforms. 

Maybe the reason as to why your marketing campaign isn’t doing what you thought it would is because you’re not actually talking to who you think you are.

Maybe you’ve assumed that your audience on Instagram is the same as your audience on Facebook. You’re confused as to why a certain post did amazing on one platform and fell off on the other especially because you’re talking to the same people who need your product! 

But there’s so many factors that could contribute to how they interact with a certain piece of content. Things like age, location, profession and more! 

These things can differ between platforms. Perhaps you have more people employed in business operations on LinkedIn while your Instagram audience is mostly general assistants or other founders. The same content won’t always appeal to all parties! 

Getting into these analytics will be extremely helpful in figuring out how to tailor the content to each platform and get the best results. 

The last thing you need to do is set new goals for the future! 

Now you have all the information you need to make informed decisions about what to change about your social media marketing strategy in order to meet your goals! 

If for example, moving forward you’d like to focus more on conversions and move away from solely focusing on brand awareness, you can start building content centred around getting those sales or sign ups. 

So, go ahead - try it for yourself so you can take some action towards more effective marketing strategies. 

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