Social media has undoubtedly become an essential part of the modern business world. With the combined influence of technological advances, the pandemic, and the digital shift, it didn’t take long for social media to revolutionize the entire playing field. It is now the leading marketing avenue available to us today.
Much like J.Lo, social media isn't going anywhere.
It has come a long way from its initial objective of simply driving online social connectivity. Most platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, to name a few, now have versatile and sophisticated advertising tools and analytic features that can help fast-track a business’s growth. However, this convenience also makes it easy to overlook growth opportunities and performance gaps.
A good way to keep track of your social media performance is to conduct social media audits. These allow you to review your social media strategies and performance at a glance. But a good audit is as much strategy as it is hard numbers! If you’re a VA whose client wants to elevate their social media performance, it is of paramount importance that you know how to navigate your way around social media auditing.
But where do we begin?
Keep Everything Relevant
As with most business owners or entrepreneurs, your client may likely be using multiple social media accounts for their brand. In order to ensure that their accounts’ brand identity, image, and searchability are consistent all throughout, you need to carefully assess the relevance and timeliness of their:
Account handles
Profile photos
Bios
Pinned posts/links
Used hashtags
Doing so will help you easily update and refine these account essentials as needed.
Know What Kind of Content Slaps
Ouch! I didn't mean it literally.
The abundance of innovative content optimization tools on social media can serve as a double-edged sword for business owners, especially startups.
Why? Because when business owners are spoiled for choice, they can easily be misled into thinking that they need to try everything. After all, they have the freedom to choose, and there’s no harm in branching out, right? But, in reality, that might not be such a good idea!
You see, getting the best results from a business’s social media marketing efforts is possible only with efficiency. And efficiency is much harder to achieve when you’re working with too many moving parts! It becomes hard to identify the specific strategies that are working, not to mention some strategies take weeks or months before you see any returns on them.
If you have a good grasp of your client’s target audience, you should have a general idea of what content resonates with them. With that as a starting point, you can analyze performance metrics such as engagement, content shares, impressions, and click-through rates. You can then evaluate which types of social media content are the best performers and base your strategy around that!
It’s also worth noting that, if your client is using different social media platforms, the analytics tools may be different. The highest-performing content types may also differ depending on the platform, and that is perfectly normal. In fact, a comparison will help you gain a more nuanced understanding of the business’s performance.
Use the Right Social Media Platforms
No matter how well you help refine their marketing strategies and account profiles, your client’s social media brand can’t expand efficiently if it’s not capitalizing on the right social platforms.
Remember—every channel has varying user population demographics. This means that not every platform will be a good fit for a business to run its campaigns and objectives. As you evaluate your client’s social media profiles and performance, be sure to consider where your target audiences are most likely to be found.
And there you have it! These are some of the most crucial things to consider when conducting a social media audit for your client. We hope these can help point you in the right direction!
If you need help auditing your social media accounts, hit us up! Our top-tier VAs are eager to assist. Click here to get started.