Why You Need a Social Media Marketing Audit

We’re all witnessing how social media is constantly changing. Every day, new trends, platforms, and features pop up. As a result, measuring success and proving ROI from social media marketing efforts can be difficult to track. Therefore, underlying problems can end up costing you money for weeks or even months before you identify them. 

However, the constant social media flux can also reveal unique opportunities for advertising and supporting the success of your business. 

Either way, you need to determine what’s working well and what cries for improvement. Here’s where performing frequent social media marketing audits weigh in.

A social media audit is an underestimated yet powerful tool to align with the business objectives and craft an effective marketing strategy. It’s important to know that it’s more than just a review of your social media efforts. The audit is a way to make sure that your marketing efforts match your business goals and that your team is equipped to produce great results for your brand.

The social media audit will provide you with insights into how well your marketing team is performing, what needs to be changed, and what your priorities should be going forward.

Let’s jump right in and see how you can make the most out of your social media by conducting a social media marketing audit.

What Exactly is a Social Media Marketing Audit?

By doing audits on a regular basis, you ensure that your activities correspond to your objectives and KPIs.

There’s a huge amount of data you generate as you do social media marketing, and it’s a shame to waste it. Audits help you turn that data into insights to pinpoint your strengths and weaknesses so you’re able to sharpen your social media marketing strategy.

Furthermore, audits can be used to benchmark your performance against your competitors and establish your market position. You can analyze your competitors’ social media accounts the same way you analyze yours and compare the results.

Which Social Media Platforms Should You Analyze?

Businesses use different platforms depending on the specifics of the industry they operate in and where their target audience is. For example, typically B2B brands will be the most active on LinkedIn rather than on Instagram or TikTok.

A social media audit will be the most meaningful if you analyze all your existing social media channels. It’s also recommended to check the platforms your competitors use. As a result, you can discover new ground to cover and innovative ways to connect with your audience.

Why Social Media Marketing Audits are Valuable

The best way to get consistent results from your social media marketing is to evaluate how well the campaigns are performing. Skipping on social media audits can lead to missed opportunities. Without knowing this crucial information, you’re vulnerable to bad performance, overspending, and not getting quality leads. Let’s take a look at what else you’re missing by passing on social media marketing audits.

You get feedback

Sometimes marketers spend a tremendous amount of time crafting the “perfect” social media strategy. Then, once it launches, no one stops to measure whether it is really doing good for the business. 

Quarterly social media audits can quickly validate assumptions and show how your audience interacts with your content. This feedback is invaluable to stay relevant. After all, the social media marketing strategy you follow needs to be responsive to changes and open to constant experimentation. 

You discover new opportunities

Audits are a great way to discover new ways to position your brand. You’ll be able to spot trends that you otherwise would miss. Armed with this knowledge, you can allocate resources better and drive the most value towards your social media marketing. 

By performing regular social media audits, you’ll be able to successfully test new ideas and improve your strategy. Different platforms offer features that are worth experimenting with. 

For example, in the early days when platforms started pushing short videos heavily, some brands took advantage of that and got a lot of easy exposure. An audit can reveal these potential opportunities before it’s too late for you to hop on.

After all, testing and tracking are closely tied with all social media efforts and one of the best approaches to see what brings the highest engagement and implement it in your social media approach. 

You’re able to understand your audience better

What makes us successful Agile marketers is strictly following the mindset behind the methodology. The first value of the Agile Marketing Manifesto is “focusing on customer value and business outcomes over activity and outputs.” 

So, social media audits help you evaluate if your marketing efforts are centered around the audience. Understanding your audience can help you focus on their pains and gains, providing relevant content that they truly value and need. The more experiments you conduct, the more data you analyze, the more value you’re able to deliver to your audience. This is vital to successful social media marketing.

You know stack up against your competitors

Although it’s not a mandatory part of it, competitor analysis is a great element to include in your social media audit. It’ll allow you to take a peek through your competitors’ windows and see what’s happening there. You’re able to determine their strategy and whether it’s working well enough for them or not. Taking notes of what competitors are doing enables you to make smarter decisions about your own strategy. 

You’re able to align with higher business objectives

Often, marketers on the ground can lose sight of the higher business objectives behind their work. An effective Agile social media marketing strategy corresponds well with the business objectives set on a higher level. You can discover if you’re on the right track by analyzing whether your efforts are bringing real value to your business.

Need Social Media Audit? We Can Help

The data your business generates is the most powerful resource you need for successful social media marketing. Don’t let it go to waste! We can help you generate more value for your business. Get in touch to learn how we can transform mountains of technical data, competitor strategies, and more into actionable insights to achieve your KPIs.