How to Conduct a Social Media Audit

Utilize the mute and unfollow features to ensure you’re only following accounts that produce positive sentiments while scrolling.

Apr. 8, 2020

Day 8: Audit your Social Media

Here is an excerpt from Hootsuite to help you get started today.

1. Create a document for your audit (or use our template below)

An audit begins with some detective work, and it’s important to have somewhere to put your findings.

The best way to keep track of all the information you’ll uncover during your audit is to use a spreadsheet.

We’ve created a social media audit template for you, which you will find above and at the end of this article. If you’d prefer to create your own spreadsheet, you can do so using a program like Excel or Google Docs. For each social account, you’ll want to record:

the link to your profile (for example, instagram.com/hootsuite)
your social handle (for example, @hootsuite)
the internal person or team responsible for managing the account (also known as the “owner”—for example, the social marketing team)
the mission statement for the account (for example, to promote company culture using employee photos, or to provide customer service during office hours)
the top three posts in terms of engagement
three important metrics
key demographic information

You should also include a column for any relevant notes about the account.

2. Track down all your social media accounts

Now that you’ve got a document to track your accounts, it’s time to go on the hunt. Start by listing all of the accounts that you and your team use regularly. But don’t assume that covers all your bases.

For example, there might be old profiles created before your company had a social strategy. Maybe these were abandoned at some point. It’s time to bring them back into the fold.

Or maybe various departments within your company are using social media, but there’s no unified system or list of accounts.

This is also a good time to identify networks where you don’t yet have a social presence, so you can start thinking about whether you should add them to your social strategy, or at least create profiles to reserve your handle for the future.

Search the web

Google your company name and the name of your products to see what social accounts come up. If you find accounts you don’t recognize, do some investigating to determine whether they’re actually connected to your company, or if they’re impostor accounts run by someone not affiliated with your brand.

Search social networks

After your Google search, it’s worth visiting each of the main social networks and searching directly for your brand and product names to see if you uncover any unexpected accounts.

Once you’re sure you’ve tracked down all the relevant accounts, set up a social media monitoring program to keep an eye out for any new impostor accounts that might pop up in the future.

Log your findings

Record all the relevant accounts you find in your audit document. Use the notes column to indicate any accounts that require further research—for instance, if you can’t tell whether the account was created by someone at your company or by an impostor.

Use the “Unowned accounts” tab to record imposter accounts and make notes about the steps taken to have these accounts shut down. Start by contacting each account holder directly, since it could be a simple misunderstanding or a case of a passionate fan taking things too far. But be prepared to escalate matters to the social networks for help if you can’t resolve things yourself.

3. Make sure each account is complete and on brand

Once you’ve logged all of your accounts, take the time to look at each one thoroughly to make sure it’s consistent with your current brand image and standards. In general, you should check the following:

Profile and cover images

Make sure these incorporate your current brand logo and imagery.

Profile/bio text

You have limited space to work with when creating a social media bio, so it’s important to make the most of it. Make sure all fields are filled in completely and accurately with current brand messaging.

Handle

Are you using the same handle across all social channels? In general, it’s a good idea to do so if you can.

Of course, you might need different handles if your accounts serve different purposes. Take a look at your handles and record in the notes if you want to make changes for consistency across social platforms.