It doesn’t matter how great your content is, how perfectly timed your posts are, or how meticulously you craft your hashtags–your social media strategy will not work unless you do a comprehensive social media audit first.

We get it, an audit isn’t exactly exciting or enjoyable. It would be way more fun to jump into a new strategy and post away. As fun as that might be, it would also be a mistake.

Let’s be honest with ourselves–if you’re launching a new social media strategy, it’s because your current strategy isn’t working. Jumping into a new strategy without first taking the time to learn from past efforts will just result in yet another new strategy sooner rather than later.

A Social Media Audit Helps You Learn From Your Mistakes

The famous Jedi Master Yoda once said “The greatest teacher, failure is.” While his syntax is upsetting, Master Yoda was absolutely right. You can learn a lot from your failed social posts.

When you dive deep into your social media strategy and analyze your tactics, you will quickly learn what works–and what doesn’t. Looking at what doesn’t work will tell you what not to post, when bad times for engagement are, whether photos work better than videos, how much text is too much or too little, or if posting four times a day on Twitter/X is helping.

In fact, a social media audit can even tell you if an entire platform is worth your time. Let’s say you’re a non-profit that connects healthcare providers with underserved rural communities. You do an audit and learn that certain posts do great on LinkedIn and your Instagram videos show some promise. Nothing you do on Facebook, though, seems to gain any traction.

You notice it doesn’t matter the time you post, the content you share, or the frequency you update your followers, Facebook just doesn’t work. Well, that might mean that Facebook simply isn’t where your customers live and you don’t need to put your time there. You won’t learn any of this if you don’t run an audit first.

It’s Not All Bad–Social Media Audits Also Show You What Is Working

It’s a basic law of physics that any action has an equal but opposite reaction. So, if a social media audit shows you what is failing, it has to show you what is succeeding. That’s just basic science.

You can learn as much from successful posts as you can from unsuccessful ones. You might find videos of employees at work are crushing it on LinkedIn, infographics are garnering tons of engagement on Instagram, and open-ended polls are pulling near-viral numbers over on Twitter/X.

By taking a look at what is working in your social media strategy, you gain a better understanding of not just what your audience wants but where they want to see it. Just as an audit helps you find out what platform to sunset, it will help you also figure out which platforms to prioritize. By looking for the most successful posts and accounts in the audit, you will be able to prioritize the accounts that lead to the most tangible business success.

Between the Successes and Failures are Opportunities for Growth

Inside the margins of your social media strategies, is where the gold of an audit can be found. Finding what works and what doesn’t is easy, it’s what is most glaring in an audit. Taking time to dive deeper into your social presence and more closely examine the more mundane posts will highlight clear opportunities to boost engagement or grow your following.

An audit allows you to more thoroughly analyze the posts or platforms that see average performance. You may find that your content is great, but you’re just posting at the wrong time. Maybe you’re posting at the right time, but delivering too long of a message for your audience. An audit lets you take the time to compare the mediocre posts with the successful ones and identify opportunities for improvement.

Above All, Social Media Audits Set a Baseline to Compare Your New Strategy Against

More than almost anything else, the main thing you will get from an audit is data. Heaps upon heaps of glorious data. With that data, you will have a baseline from which you can measure your incoming strategy against. In turn, this gives you a better sense of what true improvement looks like.

When you run an audit, you must record as much data as possible. Look for things like average number of posts per month, amount of new followers per month, and average post performance. Having this data on hand is imperative for crafting a better strategy in the future. It also shows your organization’s leaders where to best invest time and financial resources.

Now that you understand why social media audits are important, are you ready to run an audit of your own? Next, we’ll break down the step-by-step process of running a social media audit. Don’t want to wait until then?

Give us a shout and we can talk about how we can help you with your social media program.