How to Conduct a Social Media Audit in Just 30 Minutes

Social media is a powerful tool for brands and businesses to reach their audience, but it can also be an expensive one. It’s important to conduct regular audits of your social accounts to make sure they’re reaching the right people and staying on top of trends.

A social media audit is a process that can be completed in just 30 minutes. The social media audit checklist provides an overview of the different types of audits and what they entail.

By 2021, the number of people using social media on a global scale will have surpassed 3 billion.

That’s more than a third of the whole population of the planet!

This provides a fantastic chance to reach out to internet consumers, which you should take advantage of.

However, not every platform is appropriate for every company. That is why it is critical to assess what is and is not functioning.

Otherwise, you risk squandering time, effort, and resources on ineffective initiatives.

Don’t be concerned. This is where social media audits may come in handy.

I’ll teach you how to do a social media audit in only 30 minutes in this article.

The outcome will tell you if you’re on track to make it big or whether you’re at danger of wasting additional money.

Let’s speak about how to prepare for your audit first.

The term “auditing” may be frightening.

I’ve dealt with firms who charge tens of thousands of dollars for a single audit and take months to finish.

However, in this situation, yours will be very straightforward. We’ll look at each platform and determine a few key KPI benchmarks to track success.

When should you do an audit?

In the end, you can perform them as frequently as you like. At least once a year is recommended, but every quarter is preferable.

The important thing is that you do it on a regular basis and in a manner that suits you.

To keep track of everything you’ll be documenting, I suggest creating a spreadsheet. Because Google Drive is free, it’s a fantastic place to start. Here’s how to make a basic one.

Open Google Drive and create a new Google Sheets file.

I prefer Google Drive because it allows me to share documents with my staff, partners, and other suppliers.

The columns should then be labeled.

Account information and important performance metrics will be included in these areas.

What should the content of your columns be? Here are some suggestions:

You’ll need the login and URL for each platform you’ll be auditing.
The total amount of people who have followed each account.
Metrics of engagement
Information about the population
Content that is popular

These provide a solid foundation on which to build. This is how my spreadsheet currently looks.

Isn’t it a little empty? Let’s get this straightened up by inputting our account details.

I recommend that you date your audits or include monthly parts. When you audit again in the future, you’ll be able to monitor monthly changes more easily.

Because each platform is different, you may want to include columns for network-specific data.

You’re ready to utilize your auditing spreadsheet after you’ve completed this basic template. It’s now time to get down to business.

I’ll show you how to use Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Twitter to analyze your data. If you use TikTok or other specialized social media sites, make a note of them in your spreadsheet.

Facebook gathers and organizes a wealth of information about your Pages in one place. The Facebook Business Suite is where you can find it.

Facebook offers useful information on both your ad accounts and the company Page itself on that page.

Let’s take a look at the overview first, because we’re concentrating on general social media today.

Facebook immediately provides statistics about your Page’s likes, reach, and engagement levels. You may choose today, yesterday, the past seven days, or the last 28 days to filter the results.

Then, on the left-hand side of your Page, click the arrow to get a breakdown of your best-performing articles.

This will show you which content types are generating the greatest interaction and reach. Let’s return to our spreadsheet and fill it up with this information.

It should look something like this:

As you can see, I’ve tracked how many new followers I’ve acquired, how much my interaction has increased, and which material has worked best.

What about the statistics?

You’ll need to go to the insights tab to do so. This will provide you with a report on all of the Pages you’ve ran.

When you choose the page you’re auditing, you’ll be sent to an overview.

You may also click “results” to check how many people you’ve reached (this will also show you how many people you’ve reached on Instagram if you’ve linked that account.)

You’ll also notice:

The proportion of males to women who follow you.
Each age group’s proportion of users.
Which nations and cities are the majority of your followers from?
What additional websites they like.

You must advertise to each target group in a unique way. Take note of the gender, age group, and location of your most ardent supporters.

This information may be used to customize content in the future. But first, let’s populate our spreadsheet with some of this information.

You should now have a decent understanding of who your target audience is and what material they like the most thanks to that easy Facebook audit.

You may compare these metrics to the updated ones when you audit your Page again to evaluate how your content performs.

For marketers, Pinterest is a gold mine.

It’s a site that places a premium on high-quality infographics and visual information. It also has a fantastic analytics page.

After you’ve upgraded to the free business account, go to the top-left corner and choose “Analytics” and “Overview.”

Your average daily impressions, average daily visitors, and most popular content will all be included in the overview. These first two indicators are useful for tracking the progress of your account.

Understanding what material works well, like we saw with Facebook, can help you provide more of it in the future. This will boost your interaction and pins even more.

What kind of material do you find works best for your page?

To learn more about your Pinterest follower’s demographics, click the arrow next to “People you reach.”

You’ll learn about their location, gender, and native language.

The “Interests” page displays the categories in which your followers are most likely to be interested.

Make a note of them in your spreadsheet. You may post additional material in these categories in the future to see whether your followers like them.

On the “Profile” tab, you can also view your impressions, saves, and clicks.

The most significant stats here are probably saves and clicks.

By looking at which posts people save the most, you can choose which material to prioritize and which to reduce.

It also shows which pin kinds are bringing the most visitors to your website.

When you choose the “All-Time” option, you’ll see which pins have the most shares and are the most popular in searches.

Do you see any commonalities amongst the pins with the most positive feedback? This should be noted in your spreadsheet.

In your spreadsheet, make a note of any essential information. Your spreadsheet should be filling up nicely by now.

Fashion, beauty, and health businesses all use Instagram as their primary social media channel.

Instagram has more than a billion users. Plus, it’s used by over 200 million companies to reach out to consumers.

Instagram Insights are available if you upgrade to a business account (and have at least 100 followers). This is their built-in analytics tool for tracking performance.

It won’t offer you information about material you submitted before upgrading, but it will provide you information about postings you make after that. It’s only accessible via your phone.

Begin by tapping the “hamburger” option in the top right corner of the screen (the three lines.)

Then choose Insights from the drop-down menu.

The Insights site will provide you with a basic overview of your Instagram account. It starts with a content overview, which includes both articles and Stories.

Content, activity, and audience are the other three tabs. The audience tab will show you the demographics of your followers as well as who they are.

If you want to learn more about your followers, go to the top-right corner and select “See More.” This will display two graphs.

One will display the times when your followers are most engaged on social media.

The other will show which days are the busiest for them.

You may use this to determine the best day and time to publish.

Examine your Instagram posts

It’s also a good idea to assess how well your pictures are doing. This may be accomplished in one of two ways.

The first option is to click “View Insights” on a specific article.

At the top of the page, you’ll see likes, comments, shares, and saves. Instagram also shows you how many people saw your post and how far it spread.

Because hashtags are such an important element of Instagram marketing, take the time to observe which ones drew the most attention.

If you like, you may include it in your spreadsheet as well.

You’ll be able to filter out the hashtags that aren’t performing well over time and replace them with better ones.

The second option is to go to the Insights homepage’s posts section.

When you choose “Content,” Instagram will show you all of your posts from the previous year, along with their ratings.

You may also sort it by date, kind of content, and metrics like comments and likes.

You may take use of this in a variety of ways.

You may, for example, filter by content to see whether your audience prefers pictures, videos, or carousel articles.

When you narrow it down to comments, you’ll see which captions or queries receive the most attention.

Examine your Instagram Stories

Have you ever shared a story on Instagram?

It’s a great method for companies to show their fans behind-the-scenes activity.

You may use the Insights feature to learn more about how your Stories are doing. Simply open a Story and choose the viewers in the bottom-left corner.

You’ll be able to see which people saw the Story, as well as the overall number of impressions and reach. It also keeps track of things like responses and clicks.

Use this to see which Instagram Stories material your followers react to the most favorably.

Because it’s so easy, Twitter advertising is one of my favorite methods for rapidly getting attention.

You may view your account’s stats by going to the Ads Manager.

To begin, go to the “Analytics” drop-down menu and choose “tweet activity.” You’ll be able to see tweet engagement, impressions, and more using this.

First, Twitter is kind enough to provide you with a handy graph of your impressions over the last 28 days. You may also set it to the previous seven days or a custom number.

To discover which of your tweets were the most popular within a certain time period, go to the “Top Tweets” page. This is calculated by Twitter based on interaction and impressions.

Do you see any patterns?

Are certain calls to action or tweet types doing better than others?

These are the kind of questions you should ask yourself in order to finish the audit.

Do you have any idea who your fans are?

You may find out by going back to the top and clicking on “Audience insights” under the “Analytics” menu.

Make sure that your followers are the ones who are chosen.

You’ll see an overview with many tabs at first look.

You may view information about your followers on this initial page, such as their:

Interests
Consumer purchasing habits
Household income classifications
Wireless service provider
Gender

The following is what you’ll see if you click the “Demographics” tab:

It’s fair to argue that Twitter’s analytics system is very remarkable. It’s also practical.

There’s nothing you won’t know about your followers, from their precise locations to their house values.

If you go to the “Lifestyle tab,” you’ll get a better sense of what they’re interested in. This is excellent information for customizing your content.

You may include what they enjoy into what you publish if you know what they like.

When people sense you understand them on a deeper level, they will feel much more connected to your business.

The following tab, “Consumer Behavior,” has a particular advantage for those of you who work in e-commerce.

Twitter tells us what type of consumer buying style our followers have and what kinds of products they want to purchase.

If you sell goods online, this is a goldmine.

It’s telling you exactly how they like to shop and what they’re searching for.

Finally, the “Mobile Footprint” page shows you which carriers and devices your followers like to use the most.

You’re sitting back, admiring your meticulous spreadsheet. So, what’s next?

It’s time to start promoting your business.

You now have access to a wealth of information that you can use to enhance your social media channels and your whole company.

Starting with content is a good place to start.

What kind of material does your target audience prefer? Try creating more of this and see what happens the next week or month.

You may discover, for example, that your Facebook followers prefer movies over pictures. Delivering more videos, as easy as it seems, may be the simplest method to boost shares and engagement.

This video was recently shared on Facebook:

This was the direct outcome of a basic social media audit.

I’m putting a lot of money into video marketing since it’s shown to be the most effective across nearly all platforms.

I don’t usually speak about things like “finding your passion” or similar topics. I like to stick to geeky marketing concepts.

However, I’ve found that more intimate subjects, such as this, get a fantastic response.

What’s more, guess what?

More subjects like this are being added to my content schedule.

The whole point of creating this material is to raise awareness and engagement.

The goal isn’t to attempt to sell you something.

Instead, combine material kinds and subjects to generate as much interest as possible.

Then you can use custom audiences to conduct retargeting ads to sell to everyone who is watching, commenting, and clicking the Like button.

Identify a More Specific Audience

With all of your research, you now have a far better understanding of your followers’ demographics.

Age, gender, and geography are considerably more tangible factors.

You undoubtedly had a rough concept of what your ideal user looked like at first. You know for sure now.

I’d suggest looking for market studies depending on the demographics you’re looking for. These will provide you with more suggestions on how to better serve them.

Even infographics about millennials, like this one from Goldman Sachs, may provide a wealth of information about your target demographic.

Using this as an example, we might try providing free delivery, discounts, or other perks, as the studies indicate.

It’s easy to figure out what works for your users after you’ve collected all of the prior data about them.

Trends and possibilities will be detailed in reports and similar publications.

New sales channels and intriguing advertising tactics are just a few of the things to look forward to.

Overall, you know what your ideal user reacts to the most, which allows you to customize additional material to them.

Instead of working harder, work smarter.

You also now know which platforms provide the best outcomes.

You may use what we call the “80/20 rule” using this information.

It entails doubling down on the social media platforms that are most effective for you.

Perhaps the most popular social media platforms are Instagram and Facebook. If this is the case, concentrate your efforts on those platforms.

Investing more time and effort in just a few networks may provide better returns than diversifying.

This regulation also applies to advertising and content. Because the data tells you what performs best, narrow your attention to only a few important areas.

At the same time, you may use this time to experiment with other platforms. At the end of the day, you won’t know until you give it a go.

Perhaps another social network might do very well, but you haven’t tried it.

You may try a few on a lesser scale and see how they turn out before devoting too much effort to them.

You should now establish objectives for your social media profiles, such as:

Number of followers
Likes and comments are examples of engagement metrics.
The amount of traffic that comes to your website as a result of your efforts

You should be able to complete another audit in less time. You’ll be much more acquainted with the procedure, which will make it easier for you to simplify it.

You may monitor changes by comparing your statistics to prior audits when you conduct your next audit.

You’ll get a clear picture of how your social media profiles are doing over time.

Do you use advertisements as part of your social media marketing strategy?

If that’s the case, you should include them in your audit.

For example, ad networks such as Facebook and Pinterest will track the success, expenses, and other data of the advertisements you run.

Examine which ad kinds and creatives are producing the greatest results for you. You may put more money into these while cutting down on others.

This manner, you can avoid wasting money on ads that don’t provide the best results.

Even modest sponsored marketing trials may help you fine-tune your organic efforts.

For the same reason, I combine SEO and PPC.

I conduct a short PPC campaign to see which keywords convert the best in a certain sector. Then I’ll start creating content and SEO strategies based on this new information.

The same is true in social situations. Run paid campaigns to find the best content, viewers, and so on fast. Then, focus your organic efforts on what has already shown to be effective.

To figure out what works and what doesn’t in your social media approach.

When you’re thinking about altering your approach, or at least once a year.

No. Internal social media tools may be utilized in your audit, and they can be quite useful.

Social media audits assist you identify your social media strategy’s strengths, shortcomings, and possibilities. Use it to narrow your audience, enhance your social media strategy, and work harder rather than smarter.

A social media audit doesn’t have to be time-consuming or complicated.

You may finish yours in as little as 30 minutes if you follow the steps described in this article.

Every social media platform provides you with the data and insights you need to enhance your social media marketing plan and communicate with your target audience in their own language.

The elements to a good audit are preparation and organization. That is why a basic spreadsheet is so useful.

You’ll want to keep track of how these figures rise and fall over time. You may then make inferences about what works and what doesn’t.

Make a timetable for your audits as well. You might do them once a week, once a month, or once a quarter.

Don’t be scared to branch out and explore new social media platforms. These may be included in your next audit.

Set objectives based on the information you’ve gathered, and your social media accounts will steadily expand over time.

What do you consider to be the most crucial aspect of a social media audit?

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A social media audit is a process that can be conducted in just 30 minutes. The purpose of the audit is to identify and address any issues or potential risks with your company’s social media presence. Reference: what is a social media audit.

Frequently Asked Questions

It depends on the size of your social media platform and how much content is currently live. A general rule of thumb is that it should take no longer than three hours to find out exactly what is going on with your social media accounts.

A social media audit is a process of examining the various aspects of an individual or organizations presence on social media.

A social audit is a process of evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of a social media platform to identify opportunities for improvement.

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