Though many Ugandan companies have not yet embraced Social Media as a business operations tool, there are those that have already taken off time to invest in Social media. Those that have embraced the Social web have gone on to hire Social media mangers to run and guide the social media operations within the organization to match with the overall strategy. As dreadful as it may sound, a social media audit is probably the most important part of social media managers. It provides you with an overview of how’s everything going with your brand on social and it gives you something tangible to share with your team or clients and of course your boss.
I don’t know about you but when I hear the words “social media audit”, I get the shivers. The truth is that working with spreadsheets is not my favorite thing in the world but it is definitely something that grows on you, you know what I mean? And that’s because at some point you realize that there are certain tasks you can’t avoid if you are managing social media for a given brand. And one of these things, (you guessed it right) is a social media audit.
So if you’re anything like me, you’ll find performing a social media audit a lot more manageable if you follow some simple steps. Let’s take a deep breath then, and dig into the ins and outs of social media audits.
Three Common Questions about social media audits
Let’s start with some common questions I also ask yourself before I started performing social media audits.
- What is a social media audit?
Basically a social media audit is a review of your brand’s social media presence. In other words, it is an assessment tool, a sort of a social media checkup you need to do every now and then to make sure you’re on the right track with achieving your social media marketing goals.
- Why is it important?
Why do you need a social media audit, you might wonder, if you’re already aware of your company’s social media presence? A social media audit gives you the opportunity to spot what’s been going right or wrong with your social media strategy, assess your current status and how you manage your brand online, avoid mistakes of the past and enables you to move forward in achieving your social media marketing goals.
- How often should I conduct a social media audit?
Performing social media audits on a regular basis will help you check up on your progress on reaching your annual social media goals and make sure that no huge gaps are being created on the way. More than that, regular audits provide your brand with valuable insights into how your time resources are being allocated, in order to make sure that you don’t waste your effort on things that might not need improving. And they make benchmarking your social media performance much easier![related-posts]
We shall delve into the details of the 4 steps of a social media audit on Thursday.
UPDATED: Part two of this article is here: The 4 Steps of a Social Media Audit