As the year winds down, it’s the perfect time for a business to reflect on their social media performance. Conducting an end-of-year social media audit helps you evaluate your efforts over the past 12 months, pinpoint what’s working, what’s not and identify areas for improvement. Here’s a step-by-step guide to conducting an effective social media audit, along with why it’s crucial for your marketing strategy and planning for the coming year.
Why Conduct a Social Media Audit?
Like any kind of audit, a social media one is essential for ensuring that your social media strategy aligns with your business goals. Here’s 5 reasons why it’s worth taking some time to do this for your business:
- Measure Effectiveness: Identify which platforms, campaigns, and content types delivered the best results and see what also didn’t work.
- Optimise Resources: Understand where your efforts and budget are making the most impact so you can allocate them wisely.
- Set Clear Goals: Use insights from the audit to feed into your planning for 2025 and to help define measurable objectives.
- Stay Competitive: Keep track of trends and compare your performance to industry benchmarks as well as understanding competitor strategy.
- Ensure Consistency: Verify that branding, tone, and messaging remain cohesive across all platforms, in times of busyness this is an area that can easily slip.
How to conduct a social media audit
Step 1: Gather Your Data
Start by compiling data from all your active social media platforms. Use analytics tools like Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, Instagram Insights, or third-party tools such as Hootsuite, Buffer, or Sprout Social. Track key metrics including follower growth, engagement rates, reach and impressions as well as traffic and conversions where applicable.
Step 2: Review Your Content
Examine the types of content you posted throughout the year. Review it in terms of what performed well, what didn’t work, were there any content gaps, is your content aligned with your brand voice (back to my favourite subject of consistency!). Get an understanding of what your audience values and engages with most. Then build your content pillars for 2025 around these themes.
Step 3: Evaluate Platform Performance
Not all platforms may be yielding the same results. Review your presence on each platform and go back to basics in terms of where your audience is. Behaviour patterns may have changed so consider if a platform is still contributing to your goals. Don’t be afraid to make decisions around scaling back on some to allow greater efforts on others or time to explore emerging channels.
Step 4: Assess Competitor Activity
This is really important! You need to understand how your competitors are performing on social media. Look at their content, engagement levels, this can help highlight any trends you might have missed. Tools like SEMrush or Social Blade can help you benchmark your performance against industry peers.
Step 5: Check Branding and Compliance
Audit your social media profiles to ensure they are up to date and consistent. Key areas to review include are your profile information and brand consistency. Legal compliance is also critical. This can vary depending on your industry. Make sure you are adhering to copyright laws, platform policies as well as disclosure regulations.
Step 6: Set Goals
Based on your findings, outline clear, actionable goals for the upcoming year. Use the SMART framework to ensure your goals are:
- Specific: Define clear objectives
- Measurable: Use metrics to track progress.
- Achievable: Set realistic targets based on past performance.
- Relevant: Align goals with broader business objectives.
- Time-Bound: Set deadlines for achieving these goals.
Step 7: Create an Action Plan
Finally use the insights from your audit to inform your strategy for next year. Things to consider include shifting focus to high-performing content and platforms, testing new types of content, such as video or live streams, stopping certain activities and increasing others. Remember you can monitor progress as the year progresses and adjust your plan accordingly.
Next Steps
An end-of-year social media audit is more than just a performance review, it’s value is far more important. It is a chance to fine-tune your strategy and set your business up for success in the new year. By taking the time to reflect and plan, you’ll enter the next year with a clear roadmap for growth and engagement. If you need a helping hand with planning your social media strategy for 2025, just get in touch with us at Shortbytes Marketing Solutions.