Everyone is on social media, but is your organization using the correct approach to it? Do you even have a plan for your social media work? If your answer to these questions is ‘no,’ or even ‘I’m not sure,’ it’s probably time for a social media audit. Your social media impact is complex. However, there are a few simple steps that will help you outline your plan and goals. This will make your spending and efforts more successful. You will now understand your initial outlook. Then you can work with a marketing agency to develop a better social media strategy.

1. Outline Your Goals

A social media strategy is only as strong as its goals. A social media audit is only as effective as its direction. You need to outline concrete goals for your social media channels. Without goals, any attempts to audit your organization’s performance will be useless. The main purpose of a social media audit is to gauge how your performance is aligning with your goals. Every bit that you can decrease the gap between these two means an increase in engagement with your target audience. This process begins with understanding what value you are trying to extract from your social media activity.

2. Understand Your Target Audience

Everyone is accessible on social media. You need to know exactly which group of people you need to reach. This will help you spend your budget on the audience that matters to your organization. Without an understanding of your audience, you can’t tell if the engagement that you get on your posts is actually leading to results. Let’s say 400 people like your Facebook posts. What if it’s always the same 400 people? If this engagement isn’t helping your organizational goals, it’s basically a waste. Your target audience should translate pretty seamlessly from your business plan to social media strategy. This is an easy starting point for your internal social media audit.

3. Differentiate Your Organization

Social media can be a double-edged sword. It gives every organization the capabilities to broadcast their services. Your organization gets this opportunity, but so do all of your competitors. A key aspect of your social media audit is differentiating your organization. This is where your vision comes in. Our clients often come to us with an idea for differentiation. What they lack is an approach for execution. That’s a perfectly normal scenario. Figuring out your vision is a great way to get your team engaged with a social media audit. Then you can partner with an agency to work out a new social media strategy.

 4. Get Expert Social Media Audit Assistance

Completing the first three steps is like a preparation checklist for a full social media audit. At this point, your internal team should have:

• An outline of the goals for both your social media audit and strategy
• An understanding of who makes up your target audience
• A vision for differentiating your organization on social media

With these taken care of, it’s time to collaborate with an agency. A full social media audit consists of a brand audit, channel strategy development, paid media strategy, and many other factors. Balancing these on your own can quickly get out of hand. Collaborating with a team of social media experts will relieve this stress on both your organization and your finances. This will lead to the best possible social media audit.