Today social media holds the power to turn things around like nothing else. While our country was suffering left and right in the middle of the pandemic with a lack of resources, it was social media that came to the rescue of millions.

If social media has the potential to change lives, it most definitely has the potential to turn businesses around. With the increase in the relevance of digital media and marketing in the business landscape, social media has come to play a major role in the success or failure of a business.  

With staggering statistics that show the direct connection between businesses and social media, it is essential to be aware of how well your brand’s social media performs and the potential it holds to take your business to the next level. 

The presence on social media has become vital to every brand today. From promoting products and offers to establish a personal relationship with the customers, social media helps on all fronts. Therefore, an effective social media strategy is imperative and without a social media audit plan, this strategy is incomplete. 

Social media audit is the process of evaluating your brand’s social media profiles and strategy and optimizing it to get the best results. Your brand's online presence can make or break your brand, hence a social media audit makes sure your brand is always doing well online. 

A comprehensive social media audit can help you identify what tactics are working and which are not, whether your profiles are updated and active, as well as the new possibilities of attracting and engaging your followers. 

The next question that you might want an answer to is - How to perform a social media audit? Well it's no rocket science but just some simple steps that require attention, skills and consistency. When done properly and once the solutions arising from the audit are implemented well , the social media handles meet the required objectives in no time. 

The very first step is to get an account of all your social media handles- new, old, different departments, different languages etc. Get a hold of all your accounts so that there is no time wasted in finding these accounts later. 

The next step is to make sure these accounts are in line with your brand image and personality. For instance, the profile picture, bio, moodboard, keywords, etc. speak the voice of your brand.  

Next, you should be able to identify your top performing posts which can be further used for promotions. While you evaluate your posts, also evaluate your channel. For some businesses, LinkedIn might give great results but Instagram won’t and vice versa. Track the number of leads/inquiries you get from a particular social media channel. 

Social media performance varies over time therefore you should measure metrics of a certain time with that of the previous time over the same period. This gives you an idea if there has been a usual change in your social media performance or reach in similar circumstances and also gives you an insight into your followers, their preferences, likes, dislikes and behavioural change. 

Calculating the ROI, the next step, is a very crucial one as it gives you details about your social media spends and the gains that your brand experienced through these spends. 

After having a fair view of how your various posts, channels and audiences are behaving, determine which channel is the right fit for your brand and should receive more monetary spends. 

Following all these steps will result in a comprehensive social media study of your brand’s channels and thus, shall complete the process of your brand’s social media audit. 

To make things easier, you may do things like keeping the same password for all your social media accounts, standardizing the ownership rights of these accounts etc. 

Some free tools that you can use to conduct your social media audit are- hootsuite, audiense, buffer, sproutsocial and more.