Before your business invests time, energy and resources on social media, the first step is a social media audit.

A Social Media Audit is the process of uncovering what works, what doesn’t and where you can improve your social media presence. Social Media Audits are important for a couple of reasons. An audit gives you a snapshot and temperature check of the online space, whether your business is using social media or not. If your business is online, you’ll look at your audience (who are they? what do they care about? are you giving them what they want?); you’ll look at the consistency and frequency of your content posts and engagement (which pieces of content are most popular? why?) and you’ll look at competitors (what are they doing? how are they being received online?)

*While performing a social media audit it’s important to know your business objectives (what you’re trying to accomplish with social media.) If you’re not sure, there are some helpful blogs at the end of this post about starting a social media program and choosing objectives.

How to perform a social media audit:

Warm up Excel

There are a few tools you can use to pull the information together (native social site insights, Hootsuite, Buffer, SocialChamp, SproutSocial.) But excel or google sheets will be the hub because once the sheets and formulas are set up, you can just keep updating (very efficient and effective as you grow and continue to analyze.)

Gather a list of all your social media channels.

Make a list of all your social channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest etc.) and include URLs where relevant.

Choose your reporting timeframe (M/M, Y/Y Quarterly etc.)

You may want to perform an audit every three to six months. But if that’s not realistic for your business, make sure to complete a social media audit at least once per year.

Capture Engagement, Fans, Reach, Sentiment

This is the part that can be mind-numbing. Collecting the data across social networks can be easy or excruciatingly painful (and it all depends on the social media platform!) Do your best to be as accurate as possible.

Log Website Statistics (*Use Social Reports)

If you use Google Analytics, you’ll need access to it. Alternatively, if you have an IT team who ‘owns’ GA, work on getting on their good side. You will need their help to complete the social media audit.

*Review top competitors (Time Permitting)

When you’re done the social media audit for your own business, consider running an audit or a competitive analysis on your competitors. This will give you a good idea of how your business stacks up online.

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Example of Social Media Audit Template: