How Do You Do a Social Audit? Find Out With Our Comprehensive Guide

Follow Our Guide to Learn How to Conduct an Comprehensive Social Media Audit

How Do You Do a Social Audit? Grab yourself a fresh cup of coffee, get comfy and we will go through our in-depth guide on how to do a social audit. But remember, if you feel all of this is just too much work you can simply book your 100% free social ads audit with us.

As you will know performing regular social media audits is essential for brands looking to maximise their presence and engagement on networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

But what exactly does conducting a social media audit entail? This How Do You Do a Social Audit guide will walk through the key components of assessing your social media efforts including:

1. Defining your goals and KPIs
2. Selecting networks and accounts to audit
3. Capturing performance data
4. Evaluating engagement and growth
5. Assessing post content and themes
6. Examining social ad performance
7. Monitoring brand mentions and sentiment
8. Identifying improvements and next steps

Follow these best practices to audit your social media efforts for enhanced results.

How Do You Do a Social Audit: Define Your Goals and KPIs

Before diving into a social media audit,  clearly define your overall goals and key performance indicators (KPIs) to evaluate success as this is what any expert PPC agency would do. Common social media goals include driving brand awareness, website traffic, leads, audience growth and engagement, content promotion, and customer service. Then determine the specific metrics that will indicate progress toward those goals, like the number of website sessions referred from social platforms, lead conversion rate from social, audience growth rate, overall social engagement rate, and social referral percentage of total site traffic. Having clear goals and quantifiable success metrics provides focus for the audit process, helping you objectively identify strengths to amplify as well as deficient areas needing improvement. Defining strategic goals and KPIs upfront ensures your audit illuminates the performance data most relevant for guiding impactful optimisations.

1. Increase brand awareness
2. Drive website traffic
3. Boost lead generation
4. Grow audience size and engagement
5. Promote content and offers
6. Enable customer service

Then determine the specific KPIs that indicate progress towards those goals, like:

1. Website sessions referred from social
2. Lead conversion rate from social efforts
3. Audience growth rate
4. Social engagement rate
5. Social referral traffic share of total site traffic

Having clear goals and success metrics provides focus for the audit process and helps identify strengths as well as areas needing improvement.

Select Networks and Accounts to Audit

How Do You Do a Social Audit? When initiating a social media audit, carefully curating the networks and branded accounts to analyse is essential for extracting strategic insights without getting lost in superfluous data. For larger brands juggling extensive presences, focus on what counts with our what is included in a social ads audit this will help you on your journey on the major social platforms where you have established followings: Facebook company pages and ad accounts, Twitter brand profiles and promotional campaigns, LinkedIn company pages and sponsored content efforts, Instagram business profiles and influencer partnerships, and YouTube branded channels. Also assess emerging platforms like TikTok and community-specific networks popular with your audiences such as relevant subreddits or forums.

For smaller businesses with finite resources, resist the temptation to audit every possible network. Instead, diligently prioritise the 2-3 core platforms where your brand has the largest, most engaged followings. Attempting to do a Social Media PPC Audit across a scattered presence of inactive accounts on secondary networks often dilutes focus without revealing meaningful performance insights. By zeroing in on your flagship presences, you can diagnose what is truly moving the needle on business goals like brand awareness, lead generation and sales. An audit should provide clarity, not complexity. So carefully curate selected networks and accounts to examine based on current audiences, reach and impact potential.

1. Facebook company page and ad accounts
2. Twitter brand profiles and ad accounts
3. LinkedIn company page and ad accounts
4. Instagram business profile and ad accounts
5. YouTube brand channel

Also include emerging platforms and community-specific networks relevant to your audience like Pinterest, TikTok, Reddit, forums and more.

For smaller businesses with limited resources, prioritise auditing the key 2-3 networks where you currently have an established presence and listener base.

Capture Performance Data

With networks selected, the next imperative step is compiling the raw performance data required to conduct informed analysis. As an audit expert, resist shortcuts and carefully capture metrics across accounts that will fuel incisive benchmarking. Key datapoints to gather include: follower counts and audience growth rates over time to gauge reach; engagement levels such as clicks, comments, shares and reactions to assess resonance; top performing post types and content themes to identify what’s working; website referral traffic and conversion volumes attributable to social to quantify impact; social ad reach, cost-per-click and conversion metrics to optimise paid efforts; brand mention volumes and sentiment trends to understand perception; and competitor performance on social for comparison.

Utilise each platform’s native analytics alongside powerful third-party social media PPC management and listening tools to efficiently aggregate multi-channel data into accessible reporting. Compiling comprehensive performance datasets lays the foundation for identifying opportunities to strengthen your social presence and achieve business goals. The time invested in gathering quality data will pay dividends in focus and clarity for the audit.

1. Follower counts and growth rates over time
2. Engagement metrics like clicks, comments, shares, likes shows Social Media Ad Targeting
3. Top performing post types and content themes
4. Website referral traffic and conversion volumes from social
5. Social ad reach, clicks, cost-per-click, conversions
6. Brand mention volumes and sentiment trends
7. Competitor social performance for benchmarking

Leverage each platform’s native analytics along with third-party social media management and listening tools to efficiently compile data.

How Much Does A Social Audit Cost?

Investing in a comprehensive social media audit, priced between £3,000 and £5,000, brings a holistic analysis of your digital presence. This level often includes competitor benchmarking, content gap analysis, and recommendations for a refined social media approach, making it a substantial asset for substantial growth.

A basic social media audit can cost around £500 to £1,000, but budget £2,500 to £5,000 if you want an in-depth analysis of all platforms plus competitor benchmarking and strategy recommendations.

Learn more via How Much is a Social Audit on what can expect from the different price brackets and what questions to ask.

Evaluate Audience Engagement and Growth

A cornerstone of any insightful free social media pay per click audit is thoroughly evaluating audience engagement and growth trends. This analysis separates productive platforms from vanity metrics. Delve into collected data to examine: follower counts and net growth rates over time, watching for suspicious spikes that may indicate inorganic inflation; engagement rates on posts, shares, comments and reactions measured against benchmarks for your industry; website traffic referred from social platforms, reviewing quality via bounce rate; leads and sales attributed to social channels, including cost per conversion; landing page experience and funnel drop-off points indicating friction; and audience demographics and interests to assess alignment with target buyer personas.

Tracking these metrics over time spotlights where your community and influence is expanding most quickly and actively. This intelligence informs content strategy and budget allocation across Your Social Media Ads channels to further concentrate efforts where true traction exists. Just aggregating vanity metrics fails to provide the actionable insights needed to engage audiences. Evaluating quality and conversion engagement is imperative.

1. Follower counts and net growth rates over time. Look for spikes that may indicate inflated numbers.
2. Post, share, comment and overall engagement rates. Measure against benchmarks.
3. Traffic referred from social platforms. Review quality via bounce rate.
4. Leads attributed to social channels and cost per lead.
5. Landing page experience and funnel drop-off points.
6. Audience demographics and interests. Assess alignment with target personas.

These metrics help identify where your community is expanding fastest and engaging most actively to inform content and network investment priorities.

Assess Post Content Themes and Performance

Sharp social media marketers move beyond guesswork by auditing performance insights around content themes and styles. Analysing what post types and topics resonate best with your audiences is crucial for strategically guiding future efforts. Examine engagement rates across different formats like video, photos, articles and infographics to identify what should be the cornerstones of your content mix. Review view and click-through rates on specific topics and themes to zero in on your thematic sweet spot.

Think like a PPC expert and assess performance of various call-to-action approaches such as questions, offers, links and downloads to refine message effectiveness. Determine if certain post categories uniquely over-index on specific networks so you can tailor content accordingly. Evaluate optimal posting frequency and recency based on volume, engagement and drop-off rates to hit the timing sweet spot. These learnings allow you to double down on proven formats, themes and topics while phasing out those falling flat. Derive data-driven insights on post content that performs to maximise engagement and business impact going forward.

1. Engagement rates for different post categories like video, photos, articles, infographics etc.
2. View and click-through rates for different topics and themes.
3. Performance of various call-to-action approaches like questions, offers, links, downloads etc.
4. Whether certain post types and topics over-index on specific networks.
5. Optimal posting frequency and recency based on volume and engagement drop off.

Use these learnings from your social media ad performance audit to shape posting themes, topics and formats going forward.

Review Social Advertising Efforts

For brands allocating budgets to audit social media advertising, present a pivotal opportunity to evaluate performance and pinpoint optimisation potential. The litmus test for paid efforts is hard ROI data, not vanity metrics. Thoroughly gather insights to assess: ad reach, frequency and delivery relative to targets; engagement benchmarks like click-through-rate (CTR), comments and shares; cost-per-click, cost-per-conversion and overall return on ad spend; audience segments and placement types over or underdelivering; ad fatigue among targeted segments indicating over saturation; and landing page experience plus funnel completion rates.

Regular rigorous PPC audits of these key datapoints, measured against campaign KPIs, enable ongoing optimisation of Paid Social Media Ads Audit programs for maximum impact. Without rolling up your sleeves to analyse granular performance, you are essentially flying blind on true return from social ad investments. Audits provide the visibility required to execute efficient paid strategies.

1. Ad reach, frequency and overall delivery relative to targets.
2. Engagement metrics like CTR, comments and shares.
3. Cost per click, conversion and overall return on ad spend.
4. Which audiences and placements are over/underperforming.
5. Ad fatigue among various target segments.
6. Landing page experience and funnel completion rates.

Regular ad performance Paid Social Media Ads Audits drive ongoing paid social channel optimisation.

Monitor Brand Mentions and Sentiment

Savvy social media audits go beyond surface metrics to incorporate social listening insights on brand mentions and qualitative sentiment analysis. Monitoring what is said about your brand across networks yields strategic insights to inform efforts. Use listening tools to uncover: the most common topics associated with your brand revealing perceptions; how audiences are reacting to messaging, products and content indicating resonance; your most influential brand advocates and critics to gauge organic reach; what perceptions say about brand positioning and gaps versus competitors; and your share of voice benchmarked against rivals.

Analysing mention volume, topics and sentiment highlights potential reputation issues, competitive gaps, and untapped opportunities. For example, spikes in negative sentiment may warrant response, while passionate advocacy reveals potential partners. Make social listening central to your audit to understand the full context around your brand presence. This helps answer questions like:

1. What are the most common topics associated with our brand?
2. How are audiences reacting to our messaging, products, content?
3. Who are our most influential brand advocates and critics?
4. What do perceptions reveal about our brand positioning?
5. How does our share of voice compare to competitors?

Monitoring mentions and sentiment points to potential reputation issues, competitive gaps, and untapped opportunities.

How Do You Do a Social Audit: Identify Improvements and Define Next Steps

The litmus test for an impactful social media audit is clear identification of opportunities and a defined roadmap for capitalising on the social media advertising insights this uncovered. Synthesise key takeaways, recommended tactics, and next steps in a summary report that galvanises your team into action.

Succinctly outline: assessment of current strengths and wins that can be amplified further; weaknesses and gaps to be addressed going forward.

Create a prioritised list of specific initiatives and tactics recommended to pursue; key benchmark metrics tied to goals for monitoring Social Media Advertising Performance; and timing for the next audit. Avoid vague generalities and focus on tangible, data-driven actions for improvement.

Circulating actionable audit insights across your team and executive stakeholders is critical for propelling ongoing optimisation. Move the audit from hindsight to foresight by building internal alignment on priority response areas and success metrics based on what the data reveals. Make sure you avoid these Social Media Advertising Mistakes.

This fuels continuous momentum to evolve your social presence and engagement.

1. Overall assessment of strengths and wins to potentially double down on.
2. Weaknesses and gaps to be addressed going forward.
3. Prioritised list of initiatives and tactics recommended to pursue.
4. Specific benchmarks and metrics to monitor tied back to goals.
5. Next audit timing and approach.

Sharing actionable audit insights across your team and stakeholders is critical for propelling ongoing social media optimisation.

The Value of Regular Social Media Auditing

Performing standard social media audits on a quarterly or biannual basis provides a wealth of benefits, including:

1. Identifying changes in audience composition and engagement over time.
2. Quantifying the business impact of efforts via sales, leads and traffic.
3. Optimising content formats and themes that resonate best.
4. Providing benchmarks to measure future efforts against.
5. Spotting platform challenges and opportunities early.
6. Diagnosing causes behind engagement shifts.
7. Optimising social ad performance.
8. Maintaining visibility into competitive landscape.
9. Informing budget and resource allocation decisions.

Regular social auditing provides critical insights that enable brands to continually refine their strategies, operations and content. Make audits an integral part of maximising your social media marketing success.

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By Now You Should Know Exactly How Do You Do a Social Audit

Performing regular social media audits takes time, but pays dividends through ongoing optimisation of your presence. To help streamline the process, leverage solutions like Sprout Social’s analytics tools.

Learn from the best with our how to do social media marketing audit guide, I promise you it will help!