Everyone knows your business needs to be on social media. We see all the big and even smaller players doing it. If your company isn’t on social media, you’re late to the game. We often see companies jump in with no real strategy, plan or goal. That’s where audits come in! I know that word sounds a bit threatening, but it’s not as scary as it may seem. A social media audit is simply a way to measure your strategy and success by tracking metrics consistently across your social media accounts. This way you can see what’s working and what needs to be improved in your social media campaigns. Let’s go step by step on how to create one.

Track Down All Your Accounts

The first step in creating an audit is to track down all of your existing social media accounts. Make sure when you are following these step that you are doing in this in an Excel spreadsheet. Once you have all the accounts typed in, try to decide which ones you primarily want to focus on.

Have Consistent Branding

Now that you have all your accounts make sure that the branding is consistent across all of your platforms. This means your bio needs to be consistent, your banners need to be the same, consistent landing page links, and the hashtags that you use. Try to stick to certain color palette and theme in your content. Look at any major corporation and you’ll see that their branding is consistent.

Find The Best Content For Your Audit

Go into each of your accounts and find the top five best posts. Track their performance by using metrics such as, engagement, or impressions. Engagement is the number of interactions your post had such as (likes, comments, shares, link clicks) and impressions are the amount of times your content was viewed. I recommend first focusing on impressions to build brand awarness, and then switching to engagement. Also if you want to save time, I recommend using a social media management tool such as Buffer or Hootsuite. while they do come at a price, they help plan out your posts and measure data all in one place.

Know the Audience on Each Platform

The next step is to understand and document the demographics on each platform. Facebook is mainly where people 35-44 hangout. For Instagram ages 16-24 is the sweet spot. Track down each of these for your accounts and type them in your audit.

Set Your Goals and How to Take Action

You’re almost done! At this point all you have left to do is is set your goals for each of your accounts. Is it to build followers and brand awareness? Or are you trying to get to more people to click on your landing page. Once you have established your goals now just document how you are going to take action. What direction are you going to go in? Do you need to create a marketing budget? Decide what’s going to work best for you.

Time to Execute!

Now that you know how to create an audit. What’s slowing you down? Marketing is all about staying on top of trends and strategizing how to move forward. Take this time to build your audit, you’ll be one step closer to having a successful marketing campaign!

Do you think you need a marketing audit? We’ve said it before, and we will say it a million times over – consistency in marketing equals recognition. You have to be consistent in your branding across all channels and materials. You also have to be relevant to your audience in the current marketing climate. 

There is a simple solution to ensure your marketing materials are current, accurate, and consistently following your branding guidelines – an audit of your marketing materials.

What is a marketing audit?

A marketing audit is designed to make sure your materials are aligned with your goals via a review (or creation of!) your brand’s marketing plan. It is a fabulous way to keep you on pace in the marketing marathon.

Here are five reasons you may need a marketing audit:

1. It has been a hot minute. Maybe you’ve never done an audit of your marketing materials or perhaps it has been a long while since your last one. If it has been a year since your last audit, it’s time to rock one!
2. Demand shifts. Products and/or services routinely go in and out of style. Your offerings need to be effective based on current supply and demand fluctuations.
3. Products or services have changed. If you’ve added or removed products and/or services, your marketing materials need to reflect those changes.
4. Competitive changes. This is one area you absolutely want to make sure you’re keeping up with the Joneses. You don’t want stale messages to hold your brand back while your competitors offer fresh and inspiring marketing.
5. Contact information updates. If your address, phone, website or e-mail has changed, your marketing materials need to as well. If you’ve added – or need to add – a social media presence then your marketing needs to reflect that, too.

The market is constantly evolving and changing. Don’t let the materials designed to boost your brand get behind the times. A marketing materials audit gives your brand the boost it needs to keep rocking. Give us a call – we’re always ready help your brand reset and refresh.