A year-end social media business audit can help you identify areas for growth and set goals for the coming year. A social media audit is a process used to measure the success of your social strategy across accounts and networks. An audit identifies your strengths, weaknesses, and the next steps needed to improve. Here’s how to get started:
- Review your social media metrics: Look at your social media analytics to see how your pages have performed over the past year. Look at metrics such as engagement, reach, and followers. Make note of any spikes or dips in these metrics and try to identify what may have caused them. For each platform, record your username or handle the URL, and the number of followers or subscribers, engagement metrics, or any other KPIs that might be relevant to each channel.
- Assess your content: Take a look at the types of content you’ve been posting and how well they’ve been received by your audience. Think about what has resonated with your followers and what hasn’t. You may also want to consider what types of content you want to focus on in the coming year.
- Evaluate your social media strategy: Consider whether your current social media strategy is still aligning with your business goals. Are you using the right platforms for your target audience? Are you posting at the optimal times? It may be time to reevaluate your strategy and make adjustments as needed.
- Audit your social media presence: Take a look at how your business appears on each social media platform. Are your bios and profile pictures up to date? Do your posts accurately reflect your brand voice and aesthetic? Make sure everything is cohesive across all platforms. Tools such as Agorapulse can analyze your content on Twitter & Instagram. Hashtagify is a cool tool that will allow you to identify related hashtags to the one that has worked best for you. The tool is freemium and it will show you related and popular hashtags for free. Buzzsumo has a handy Facebook audit feature allowing you to analyze the content of any page, and even compare it to competitors’ pages.
- Identify areas for improvement: Based on your review of your social media metrics, content, and strategy, identify areas where you can improve. Maybe you must focus on creating more visually appealing content or engaging more with your followers. Make a list of actionable steps you can take to improve your social media presence in the coming year. See what popular posts within each platform and across platforms have in common. The type of post, the target audience of the post, the time it was posted, and any media in the post are things to explore.
- Set goals: Once you’ve identified areas for improvement, set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for the coming year. This will help you stay focused and progress toward your social media objectives. Your social media goals should be about how social media can benefit your business, including increasing brand awareness, engagement, and traffic to your website.
A year-end social media business audit is a crucial step in helping your business grow and thrive on social media. By reviewing your metrics, assessing your content and strategy, and identifying areas for improvement, you can set yourself up for success in the coming year.