by De-de Mulligan

Whether you’ve had social media accounts for ten days or ten years, at some point, you should conduct an audit. While this sounds formal and auspicious, it doesn’t have to be so.

Most industry gurus recommend an audit once a quarter. I know that might be a bit much or an expensive proposition for many businesses. However, without a proper review, you can’t complete course corrections on your messaging.

Here are the twelve things we have found useful when completing this process.

Social Media Audit Must-Haves

1. Clear out your cookies and Google your company name.
   Comb through the first three pages of the search. Are there any:
   1. Imposter accounts?
   2. Outdated profiles with wrong information? (Remember this affects local SEO)
   3. Social channels you have but are not active?
       
2. Compile all the login information in one place.
   We have helped hundreds of businesses with their social media over the years and one thing most of them have in common – they let the (owner’s brother’s wife, former employee, or distant cousin) set up these accounts and they have no idea how to get into it. The person who set them up won’t return their calls. TODAY, take ownership of your accounts, even if you think they are in good hands. It’s your company’s identity – an extension of your brand.
    
3. Keep the information in the cloud.
   If your company suffers from a disaster or crisis, you want to make sure you can communicate with your followers from any device at any location. Cloud applications like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or Dropbox allow you to do just that.
4. Identify your top and bottom posts.
   If you do this quarterly, pick the top and bottom 4-5 posts based on impressions, reach, and engagement. Spend time brainstorming about and learning from them.
    
5. Pay attention to reviews.
   Perhaps there are social channels that come up in your search you don’t post or pay attention to regularly. Reviews, good or bad, affect the health of your brand. If you find reviews that have no response, take the time to respond to them now, even if they are aged.
    
6. Create a report and present it to management.
   Finding problems and opportunities with your audit is one thing, but making recommendations on improvements is quite another. You need this baseline to know if your suggestions have taken hold over the last quarter or year. You may need budget dollars to hire a digital marketing agency to post regularly, listen to your competitors, and monitor your brand health. Without regular reporting, you will not know whether what you do is impactful or not.
    
7. Drive brand consistency.
   Make sure the following are the same across platforms:
   1. Profile picture
   2. Cover image
   3. Bio text
   4. Handle
   5. About information (hours, parking, costs)
       
8. If you have a pinned a post, be sure it’s still current.
   I’m not a big fan of pinned posts because most people “pin it and forget it.” If you’re diligent about your posting and check your channels regularly, by all means, pin important information to the top. However, you’re not so persistent, don't.
    
9. Talk to your buyer personas.
   As I spoke about in last week’s post, drilling down your buyer persona is going to help establish which channels work. For example, if most of your clients are over 35 years old, you don’t need to be on Snapchat. Conversely, if most of your clients are male business owners, you probably don’t require Pinterest but do need LinkedIn. Bottom line: Get out of the channels that don’t make sense and engage fully in the ones that do.
    
10. Figure out your goals.
    Do you want to garner more likes, comments, or shares? Drive traffic to your website? Promote upcoming events? Write out your goals and see how each channel measures up to it.
     
11. Shampoo, rinse, repeat.
    If you decide on quarterly, biannual, or yearly social media audits, be sure to stick to the plan. It’s the only way you’ll learn and grow.
     
12. Check your website for old channels and broken links.
    If I had a dollar for every prospect and client over the years that had broken social media links from their website, I’d be rich! Also, you don’t want to be stuck with a G+ logo on your site since Google abandoned Google+ in April.

Need Help with Your Social Media Audit?

We at Mulligan Management Group can conduct your audit at lightning speed and give you practical recommendations to improve your online presence. Give us a call for more information at 330-472-7673 for or fill out our contact form today!