How to Run a Social Media Audit

October 2, 2024
By
Rachel Ramsay

A social media audit can be a great way to stay on top of strategy, assess the efficacy of your posts, and dust away the cobwebs lurking on your brand's 15-year-old Facebook page. Here's how to tackle it.

Can you say with confidence what your Instagram bio reads? How many followers you have on Facebook? The date of your most recent post on X?

If the answer to any of those questions is no, it might be time for a social media audit.

A social media audit is a comprehensive evaluation of your brand's social media presence across all platforms. It’s like a health check for your social media channels, giving you a clear snapshot of how well your efforts are performing. 

By analyzing metrics, content, audience engagement, and overall strategy, you can identify what’s working, where improvements can be made, and uncover new opportunities for growth or streamlining. 

Think of it as your roadmap to optimizing your social media game.

Ready to run your audit? 

Download our free Social Media Audit Toolkit—a pre-filled Google Sheet with formulas and prompts designed to guide you through the process step by step. Just plug in your numbers and get a clear snapshot of your social media performance.

Why should you run a social media audit?

With social media constantly evolving, running a regular audit ensures you’re not wasting time or resources on tactics that don’t work. Here’s why it’s a must:

  • Uncover what’s driving results: You’ll identify which strategies are paying off and where you might need to pivot.
  • Align with your goals: It ensures that your social media efforts are still in line with your business objectives.
  • Optimize your content: You’ll spot gaps in your content strategy and have the data to double down on what resonates with your audience.
  • Stay ahead of the competition: A thorough audit gives you insights into trends, audience behaviors, and how you stack up against your competitors.
  • Eliminate any blind spots: That old URL on your Facebook profile, a rogue X account from 2018—a social audit is your chance to dust away the cobwebs, and make sure your social presence is representative of your current brand. 

How often do you need to run an audit?

How often should you take a step back and assess your performance? The answer depends on the speed at which your business moves. For most brands, a quarterly or half-yearly audit will provide a solid performance overview. This cadence gives you enough time to collect meaningful data and make adjustments based on trends, campaigns, and new developments in your industry.

For fast-moving industries, you might benefit from more frequent audits—perhaps monthly. This allows you to respond quickly to any shifts in engagement or algorithm changes that could impact your results.

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What does a social media audit involve?

Let’s break it down step by step. Here’s exactly what you need to cover when conducting a social media audit:

1. Audit key profile features

What to do: Start by evaluating the foundational elements of your social media profiles, such as your profile photo, bio, links, and pinned content. Make sure everything aligns with your current brand identity and messaging.

Why it’s important: Your profile is often the first interaction someone has with your brand. A cohesive, up-to-date profile builds trust, supports brand recognition, and encourages potential followers to stick around.

2. Audit performance (this reporting period vs. last)

What to do: Compare your key metrics—such as follower growth, engagement rates, and reach—from this reporting period (e.g., Oct 2023 – Sep 2024) to the previous one (Oct 2022 – Sep 2023).

Why it’s important: This data comparison helps you identify trends, measure the effectiveness of your efforts, and pinpoint areas for improvement. A clear understanding of your performance over time empowers you to make data-driven decisions.

3. Audit best and worst performing posts

What to do: Take a close look at your top-performing posts and those that didn’t quite hit the mark. Analyze the type of content, posting times, and engagement levels to determine what worked and what didn’t.

Why it’s important:  Understanding which posts resonate with your audience allows you to create more of what works. Similarly, knowing what fell flat helps you avoid repeating ineffective content, saving time and resources.

3. Record posting frequency across channels

What to do: Record when the last time you posted across each profile was, and how frequently you’re posting across each channel. Don’t just guess it—count up the posts that have gone out across your reporting period, and average the results by the amount of weeks you’re reporting against.

Why it’s important: Measuring results such as reach and engagement against the amount of effort being expended on posts is a good start towards analysing your ROI. Similarly, if you discover you’ve published a grand total of two Facebook posts this past year, it might be time to assess whether your organic Facebook presence is a good representation of your business’ brand. 

Summing up

Running a social media audit doesn’t have to be overwhelming. By following these steps and staying on top of your performance metrics, you’ll be able to make informed decisions that fuel your social media growth.

Ready to run your audit? 

Download our free Social Media Audit Toolkit—a prefilled Google Sheet with formulas and prompts designed to guide you through the process step by step. Just plug in your numbers and get a clear snapshot of your social media performance.

Download the Social Media Audit Toolkit now and take the guesswork out of your strategy!

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