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Twitter me this: What do most companies wrestle with when it comes to using social media tools? If you guessed “ROI” (return-on-investment), you earned a red heart (on Twitter, you can “like” a tweet by tapping the red heart icon).
While it’s important to sort out what type of social content you should produce to generate sales or accomplish other strategic goals, there’s an even greater uphill climb for businesses using social media to conquer: defining a holistic digital marketing strategy.
Furthermore, and as noted by the Harvard Business Review, research shows consumers’ so-called “electronic word-of-mouth” referrals or remarks on social networks about businesses and their services can significantly affect a company’s perceived value.
What Is a Social Media Audit?
Whether it’s determining your company’s ROI using social media, figuring out an end-to-end digital marketing strategy, both, or striving to reach other corporate goals, a social media audit is a research-based way to ascertain whether you’re achieving results using the social tools you are, and where you may be falling short.
It can also provide insight into which social channels you need to be on, and which ones to switch off if they’re not producing any tangible results. For example, does your company need to spend time using Snapchat or Pinterest? Are your customers or the bulk of your targeted audience using those platforms? An audit can help you find out.
It can also show you what posts or content you shared resonated the most with your customers, or that generated the greatest amount of engagement.
“To ask, ‘what is the ROI of social media?’ makes as much sense as asking, ‘what’s the ROI of the telephone?”
– SAMUEL SCOTT
Why Vetting Your Social Presence Is Paramount
Some of the primary benefits an audit of your social network presence includes:
- Competitive intelligence.
Get the lay of your competitive landscape by analyzing what your primary and secondary competitors are doing on social networks. Take note of both the good and bad because it can help you and your team be more effective with your efforts. - Audience analysis.
Who is your audience and what social networks are they on? Do you have any social influencers or people who engage with you frequently? And what are your primary objectives for using social networks? A social media audit won’t definitively answer all of these questions – that’s where a social strategy comes in – but it will help you compile the information you need to get there. - It’s the foundation for your social marketing strategy.
To accomplish corporate goals using social media, you must have a thoughtful plan. To establish an in-depth and forward-looking social media marketing plan, you need to review how and what results you’ve achieved to date. - It’s integral to measuring your digital marketing performance.
You need to know where your company is in the social media sphere. An audit can help you shift from a broadcasting mentality to one of engagement. That’s the genesis for building trust with your customers and followers: being helpful and creating value.