How to Perform a Social Media Audit to Start the Year Off Right

The start of a new year is a great time to evaluate your marketing efforts, especially your social media strategy. As social media is always evolving, what worked last year might not work this year, so conducting a social media audit can help identify what’s working, what’s not, and where there’s room for improvement. This guide will walk you through the step-by-step process of performing a social media audit to start your year on the right foot.

Why Perform a Social Media Audit?

A social media audit is an opportunity to realign your strategy with your business goals. It can help you to:

• Identify performance gaps: Understand which platforms and strategies are yielding results and which are falling short.
• Optimize resources: Ensure your time, budget, and energy are spent effectively.
• Update branding: Verify that your messaging, visuals, and profiles reflect your current brand identity.
• Stay competitive: Assess your performance against competitors and industry benchmarks.
• Set measurable goals: Use the audit as a foundation to establish clear objectives for the year.

This is especially important to do if your products / services and / or target audience change. Here’s how to get started with your audit.

How to Conduct a Social Media Audit

Step 1: Gather Your Data

The first step is collecting all the relevant data from your accounts. Create a spreadsheet to organize the following information:

1. List of accounts: Record all your active and inactive social media accounts, including legacy platforms.
2. Account details: Document usernames, handles, bios, URLs, and profile pictures to ensure consistency.
3. Performance metrics: Export data for key performance indicators (KPIs) like follower count, engagement rate, reach, impressions, click-through rate, and conversion rate.

This information is what your audit will be based on.

Step 2: Evaluate Platform Performance

Not every social media platform will be equally effective for your business. Analyze each channel’s performance based on its alignment with your target audience and goals:

• Audience demographics: Does the platform’s user base match your target market?
• Engagement: Which platforms generate the most meaningful interactions?
• Traffic and conversions: Identify which channels drive website traffic or sales.
• Content type performance: Assess whether certain types of content (e.g., video, carousel posts) perform better on specific platforms.

Use this information to determine which platforms to prioritize, reallocate resources, or potentially abandon.

Step 3: Audit Content Strategy

Review your content from the past year to identify trends and insights:

1. Top-performing posts: Which posts had the highest engagement and why?
2. Content gaps: Are there topics, formats, or audiences you haven’t addressed?
3. Brand alignment: Is your tone, style, and messaging consistent across platforms?
4. Visual consistency: Check for cohesive branding in imagery, fonts, and colors.

Make a note of what’s resonating with your audience and where there’s room to diversify or refine your content.

Step 4: Analyze Audience Engagement

Understanding how your audience interacts with your content is critical to improving your strategy:

• Engagement rate: Compare likes, comments, shares, and other interactions relative to your follower count.
• Response time: Evaluate how quickly your team responds to messages, comments, and inquiries.
• Audience feedback: Review comments, direct messages, and reviews to gather insights on what your audience values.

Focus on building a stronger relationship with your audience by addressing their needs and concerns.

Step 5: Check Competitor Activity

A social media audit isn’t complete without assessing your competitors. Use third-party tools or native platform analytics to focus on the following:

1. Benchmark performance: Compare your metrics to competitors in your industry.
2. Content analysis: Identify trends or strategies competitors are using successfully.
3. Audience insights: Look for gaps in your competitors’ approach that you can leverage.

This analysis can inspire new ideas and help you stay ahead of the competition.

Step 6: Review Paid Campaigns

If you’re running paid social media campaigns, include them in your audit:

• Ad performance: Review metrics like cost-per-click (CPC), click-through rate (CTR), and return on ad spend (ROAS).
• Targeting: Assess whether your audience targeting aligns with your campaign objectives.
• Creative: Evaluate the effectiveness of your ad visuals and messaging.

Adjust your paid strategy based on what’s delivering the best ROI.

Step 7: Update Goals and KPIs

Use your audit findings to set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals for the year. Examples include:

1. Increase engagement rate by 10% over the next quarter.
2. Grow Instagram followers by 15% by mid-year.
3. Boost website traffic from social media by 20%.

Align these goals with your overall business objectives and assign clear ownership to ensure accountability. It’s important to have a reason behind these goals that will align with the bigger picture.

Step 8: Create an Action Plan

The final step is turning your audit insights into actionable steps:

• Platform prioritization: Focus on high-performing channels and phase out underperforming ones.
• Content strategy: Develop a content calendar based on successful formats and themes.
• Engagement improvements: Plan for faster response times and more personalized interactions.
• Ad optimization: Refine targeting and creative based on paid campaign analysis.

Remember that this isn’t a “set it and forget it” approach — it’s important to continuously review your social media performance moving forward.

Next Steps

Conducting a social media audit is a strategic way to ensure your online presence is helping you reach your bigger business goals. By following these steps, you’ll gain valuable insights that can guide your strategy, optimize your efforts, and set your company up for success in the new year.

If you’re ready to revamp your social media strategy, our marketing agency specializes in helping small businesses and tech startups build a consistent, engaging, value-driven online presence. Request a consultation with us today.