Every business that wants to flourish on social media should be conducting audits.
Record & Analyze Engagement
Start your social media audit by rounding up all the social media platforms you use and record the number of likes, followers, and other engagement metrics that are relevant to your business growth. Record the name and URL for each social media platform as this will help branding. Analyze the engagement you have on each platform to see which ones are performing better than others. Is certain content performing better on Instagram than it is on Facebook? Watch out for changing trends as many platforms update their functions; your content may get pushed further down someone’s newsfeed. Remember to conduct a social media audit often to see the trends on different platforms.
Look for Patterns
The next step of your social media audit is to dive deeper and look for patterns in how your content performs. Look for which posts are the most popular and what they have in common. You might be interested to find that different times of the day perform better for your posts on social media, find what times work best for your business by looking for patterns. Other metrics you should be looking for include demographics of your audience, the type of media that was posted, and which platform generates the most traffic to your website. Regularly looking for patterns allows you to reassess your current social media strategy as trends constantly change in the market.
Set Goals for Your Platforms
After looking at what type of content performs best on each platform, set goals for your social media accounts by pointing out specific KPI’s that you wish to improve. You should focus more than just on growing your social media following, instead, focus on increasing brand awareness, engagement, and traffic to your website from social media. Think about what is going well for your brand on social media and capitalizing on it. Goals can include both improving your current strategy and capitalizing on what is already working well. Social media can be used in multiple ways to improve your business model, think about how you can leverage it for your brand and set goals that are appropriate to your products and target audience.
Stick to a Plan
Once you know the goals you wish to achieve with your social media, create a plan that you can stick to throughout the process of your social media audits. It's easy to get weighed down by massive amounts of data, creating a plan for your business’s social media will help you analyze if your current strategy is performing well. Collecting data is a huge part of the social media audit process, but its end result is to help you forge a plan to stick to as you set goals and accomplish them. Don’t let data collection distract you from the end goal: creating a social media plan.
Understand the Audience on Each Platform
An important part of your social media audit will be understanding the audience for each social media profile you have. Your audience and their interests can differ when looking at multiple social media platforms, understanding how to leverage your audience will prove worthy to your social media strategy. Look at the demographics and interests of your audience for every social media platform you use to determine which strategies work best.
Assess New Platforms
Don’t be left behind when a new social media platform comes out, instead, be on top of the latest trends and new platforms by assessing if they are right for your business. A business’s biggest mistake is employing a social media profile on a dead platform. Follow where your audience goes by assessing new platforms and determining if they can leverage your business. If you are seeing potential elsewhere, don’t be afraid to try out a new social media channel.
ImageWorks, LLC: CT Digital Marketing Experts
Keeping up with trends in digital marketing can be exhausting, especially when you've got a company to run. That's why our team at ImageWorks stays up to date with the latest advancements in the marketing industry. Let us focus on turning your website into a lead generation machine so you can focus on your business!