How To Do A Social Media Audit (Free Template Updated For 2020)

Let’s assume your business has a presence on a variety of social media platforms. In fact, let’s say your brand has had a Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram profile for years. If everything’s working and you’re seeing results, great! If not, however, there’s an easy starting point to check where things can be improved or changed. Have you completed an audit recently? Here’s how – plus a free social media audit template to get you started.

Performing a social media audit is not as harrowing as it sounds. Honest. An audit is a great way to quickly evaluate your current activities and update and develop your social media presence in line with your overall marketing strategy.

What is a Social Media Audit?

Just like with accounting, an audit is a chance to go through everything and take a look at what’s right and what’s wrong. It’s taking a step back to analyse what’s been happening and what you’ve been doing. With a social media audit, you really want to take the time to look at all your channels on a regular basis (weekly if you can, if not a couple of times a month at the very least).

You want to take this time to look at what you’ve been doing and what’s working well for you. All major social networks will give you access to various analytics and insights, and that, mixed with your own website stats (something like Google Analytics is essential) should give you a great feel for what’s going on in your digital world.

A social media audit helps you identify new opportunities, make note of copycat accounts, and determine which profiles are in need of a little bit of TLC. We often get asked by clients: why do I need a social media audit before we start working together? What are the benefits? There are a lot of reasons, both for us and for you, as the client. Let’s have a look at the social media audit benefits you’ll reap, starting by taking a look at what an audit entails.

Don’t get put off by the term. No one likes an audit (except, maybe, auditors). Think of it, instead, as a bit of Spring Cleaning. It’s a chance for you to keep what’s working (maybe freshen things up), throw out the old (any elements that aren’t working), and make space for the new.

As you gather information, add it to your audit spreadsheet (or you can use our free social media audit template below). This will help you build a clear and current picture of your overall social media presence. More importantly, you’ll be able to reassess your goals for each profile and determine whether or not your social media marketing strategy needs attention.

A good social media audit will give you an idea of the current performance of your various profiles as well as highlighting possible ways forward. Ultimately, your completed audit becomes a useful document containing information on all your social media accounts in a single place for quick and easy reference. You’ll know who’s responsible for what, as well as each profile’s login details, and the goals you’ve set. All in one place. Not bad for a little spreadsheet.

How to Perform Your Own Social Media Audit [+Template!]

First of all, you need to set up a spreadsheet to collate all your audit info. Alternatively, you can just download and use our social media audit template, below.

A social media audit template should include, for each of your company’s social media accounts, the following essential information:

• Social Network (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, etc. This is especially important if you have multiple accounts on the same platform.)
• URL/Link to Profile (e.g. https://twitter.com/socialink_co)
• Channel Owner (e.g. who’s responsible for that profile – an individual or team)
• Mission Statement (e.g. what is that channel’s intended use and business outcomes)
• Profile Image On-Brand?
• Banner Image On-Brand?
• Bio On-Brand? (e.g. does it include links to your website and other relevant accounts?)
• Password Centralised (e.g. where are the passwords for each account stored and who has access?)
• Additional Notes

With this in place, next, you need to collate the information for all your company’s social media accounts.

Find all the profiles that have been created for your brand (whether they’re dead or alive) and add them to your social media audit. This will give you a full picture of your company’s social media presence, as well as highlighting opportunities to explore other social media platforms that you’re not currently on.

Once you have all your known profiles in place, it’s time to seek out the unknown (or copycat) profiles.

Click here to download our free Social Media Audit Template here. (Microsoft Excel Sheet)

Perform a Google search for your brand or company name and product names. Do the same on each social media platform. See what results are thrown up. Add these to your audit under the Unknown Social Channels tab. You’ll want to keep an eye on these and keep track of any steps you’ve taken to get the accounts removed or shut down.

Social Media Audits Help Keep You on Brand

With the detective work over and done with, it’s now time to focus on the status of each profile. Namely, are they all on brand?

From time to time, branding changes. It’s part of the constant evolution and development of your business. For this reason, it’s important that all your outward communications channels are kept up-to-date with current branding. This includes, most notably, your social media channels.

On social media, you’re at your most visible. Therefore, you need to ensure your logo, profile pics and banner images are all branded and standardized across your portfolio. After all, you want your customers to recognize you wherever you are online. Your social media bios and profiles are an essential part of this, but it’s easy to neglect them in favour of day-to-day posting. If you’re stuck, we do have some creative social media bios for your inspiration. But whether it’s your bio or your posts, social media audit is an easy way to keep track of what needs to be updated or when it was last changed.

Make sure every social media account is updated with the correct and current branding, including bios and links to your homepage, relevant landing pages or campaign assets.

How Much Does A Social Media Audit Cost?

As a service, a social media audit can vary in cost from free to several hundred £. It should be a key part of any social media strategy packages, too, to establish a starting point.

A social media audit is the first step towards effective social media marketing. However, if after you’ve completed your audit you still need support, we offer a free social media consultation. (By humans, not by bots!)

Once you have completed this initial social media audit, you can use your findings to evaluate your performance. An audit is just the start of the process. With all your key information logged, you are now in a position to identify your best posts for each channel, evaluate how each social media account is performing, use audience demographics for each network to help tailor your content and tone of voice, and ultimately, decide which channels work for your business.