Now is an excellent time to take stock in your brand and determine which aspects of your strategy are working to achieve your goals and where you can improve. Here are five steps to take to perform a social media audit:
1. Is your information correct? Ensure your About me information, tagline and contact information is updated, accurate and is consistent with your brand’s voice. When aspects of your business change or elements of your website are updated, be sure it’s the same information on all of your social media platforms.
2. Choose the right platforms. Are you getting the results you want from your social platforms? It may be time to cut one of your platforms and either narrow your focus or shift your focus to a higher converting social channel.
Knowing your customer demographics, as well as the type of content you want to emphasize (i.e. photos versus text) will help you choose the right online platforms, from Twitter to Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn.
3. Be consistent. Build familiarity with your community both online and offline, by making sure that your website, Facebook page, Instagram, and business cards, all give off the same look and feel. Elements such as photos, fonts and colours will make it much easier for the customer to understand and identify with your company.
4. Set goals. With most social networks available, there are built-in analytics where you can analyze exactly how well your content, advertising campaigns, and even photos, have performed. Compare your page to your competitors or brands similar to yours, to see how your company benchmarks against the industry. Knowing what other people are doing, how they are talking, and pictures they are using, can provide insight into your own scheduling and content creation.
5. Benchmark. Is there a business in the same industry as yours that is standing out and gaining market share? Perform an audit of your competitor’s social media profiles. What are they doing differently, what platforms are they using, and what opportunities can you seize. Are there topics they are not covering that are important to the customer in your industry?
Lauren Shirreffs and Steve Dolson are the founders of 2Social, a digital marketing agency based in Toronto. They work with local and national brands on building their social city.
