How to conduct a speedy social media audit

Is your brand overdue for a social media audit? Modern social media strategies should be based on data and goals. It’s not enough just to wing it.

The problem? So many companies freestyle their social presence without a plan. We get it. Maybe you're taking over for someone that was winging it. Or you just haven't had time to put your presence under the microscope. Whatever the reason, conducting a social media audit is a crucial step toward achieving your marketing goals. And the good news is, it doesn't have to be a daunting task.

In this guide, we equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to conduct an efficient and effective audit. We'll walk you through the process step-by-step, providing actionable tips and a free downloadable template to help you along the way. For a visual walkthrough, check out the video below.

What is a social media audit?

A social media audit is a comprehensive review of your brand's presence across all social platforms. It's like looking under the hood of your social media engine, allowing you to identify what's running smoothly and what needs a tune-up.

A thorough social media audit can help you:

• Gain a clear understanding of your current performance. An audit provides a snapshot of your key social media metrics—engagement rates, reach, audience growth—giving you a data-driven foundation for decision-making.
• Identify areas where you can improve your strategy. By analyzing your content performance, audience demographics and competitor activity, an audit reveals what's working and where you can optimize your approach.
• Ensure your social efforts are aligned with your business goals. An audit helps you assess which social media activities are effectively contributing to your overarching objectives, whether that’s driving website traffic, generating leads or boosting brand awareness.
• Uncover new opportunities for growth. An audit can reveal untapped potential in your social presence, such as new audience segments to target or emerging platforms to explore.

How to do a social media audit in 10 simple steps

If you’re scrambling to figure out how to do a social media audit, don’t sweat! We’ll bite: there’s a lot of ground to cover.

That said, the legwork you put in now will be eye-opening and save you serious time in the long run. Below we've broken down the step-by-step process for your first audit. Download our audit template, and get ready to follow along. As a bonus, you can simply repeat these same steps next time you analyze your presence.

1. Take inventory of active and inactive social profiles

First thing's first: take inventory of your social profiles. No-brainer, right? But also consider your social profiles beyond "big" networks like Instagram or Facebook. That brand YouTube account with two subscribers? That Pinterest profile you haven't touched in three years?

Yep, those count. You don't need to agonize over networks you're not active on. Double-check you've claimed those accounts and they're under your company's control.

Our social media audit template has tabs for all the major networks. You can freely add new tabs for any other platforms you use, too. We also included a section in the summary tab to list your brand’s social profiles in one place.

With your profiles accounted for, it's time to define your priority platforms. These are where you’ll focus on building your social presence. You might be surprised which networks you have the most traction on.

2. Define specific goals for each network

No surprises here. Zero in on your social media goals for each platform you're active on, including:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Generating more leads and sales
• Increasing community engagement
• Growing your audience (think: followers)
• Increasing traffic to your site

It's crucial to align your social media goals with your overall business objectives, but don't neglect your audience's behavior.

For example, if your leadership team wants to see more audience growth on TikTok, but users mainly discover your brand through their For You Page, why not focus on maximizing views instead? This approach aligns with how your audience actually interacts with your content. Plus, you can always back up your strategy with data surfaced during your audit.

Keep in mind that you don't have to fill in every single blank for your first social media audit. Again, focus on the social media metrics that reflect your goals.

3. Make sure your branding, language and identity are consistent

Consistency is key to a strong brand identity on social media, but it's easy to let little details slip. When auditing your social presence, make sure your profiles send a unified message. Keep these elements of your brand identity in mind for consistency:

• Bio and "About" language (when in doubt, refer to your style guide)
• Profile and banner images
• Destination URLs and landing pages
• Hashtags

If you don’t run many social-specific campaigns, chances are you won’t have many updates to make. But for brands with seasonal campaigns, regular check-ups are crucial. For example, you should confirm that you aren't still using holiday campaign creatives in mid-March.

4. Open up your social media analytics

Time to dive into the data. With your profiles prepped and ready, it's time to see how they're really performing. Are you hitting your targets? Where is there room for improvement?  A social media analytics tool like Sprout can help you quickly pull the metrics you need to get the full picture.

The Cross-Network Profile Performance Report aggregates key analytics from all your social platforms—Facebook, X, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube and TikTok—giving you a clear understanding of how your network strategies compare.

If you’re not using Sprout, you can still use our handy audit template. This resource outlines key metrics to track, including engagement, link clicks, shares, referral traffic, impressions and more in a streamlined spreadsheet.

Once you've gathered your data, you'll be able to identify your top-performing channels and prioritize your efforts. If you've been consistently tracking your social media performance, this step will be even more insightful.

5. Identify your top-performing social media posts

Want to know the secret to creating content your audience truly loves? Dive deep into your individual post performance. Your native platform analytics can reveal a goldmine of insights about what resonates best.

For each platform, analyze your content's performance across key metrics, including:

• Impressions (or views)
• Engagements (comments, "Likes," saves, etc)
• Reach

If sorting posts by engagement feels tedious, Sprout Social can help. The Post Performance Report ranks your top-performing posts over a selected time period, providing insights into the content your audience prefers.

Our template has sections to measure the performance of your overall publishing strategy, along with individual top posts, too. If you want to go more granular, you can also categorize your top posts based on criteria including:

• Videos
• Promotional
• Educational/information
• Entertainment
• Rich media (images and GIFs)

This will give you a clear picture of exactly which type of content is working on each channel. From there, it’s a matter of fitting more of that content into next month’s social media calendar.

6. Figure out how you're funneling your social media traffic

Your social media presence shouldn't exist in a vacuum. It's crucial to understand how your efforts are driving traffic to your website and generating leads. This means figuring out which posts are sparking genuine interest and which channels are your top performers.

Bonus points if you already have Google Analytics set up to track your marketing across channels. You can find traffic numbers in Google Analytics under "Acquisition. Then, filter by "Social").

Alternatively, you can use Sprout Social to identify the correlation between your social media followers and website traffic, giving you a clear picture of your social’s broader impact on audience behavior.

7. Dig into demographic data

What you post and how you say it depends heavily on your audience demographics. Messaging for Gen Z and millennials versus Gen X and baby boomers is apples to oranges.

That’s why incorporating demographic data into your audit is essential. Knowing which platforms resonate with specific regions and age groups helps contextualize your results.

For the latest social media demographic insights across platforms, check out this guide.

8. Assess opportunities from new social media platforms

Social media fragmentation is real. Every year comes with a new set of trending platforms. Of course, not all of them stick around. But being an early adopter of a social network can be enticing.

Think about how TikTok exploded after being dismissed as a secondary network. Likewise, look at all of the buzz around Threads. It pays to keep an open mind. In your social media audit spreadsheet, highlight new platforms you want to explore.

If you’re using our template, there’s a section for these types of notes in the “Summary” tab. Keep in mind this isn’t a necessity. If you’re already focused on a few networks or don’t find any new platforms that interest you at the moment, no worries.

That said, it’s always a good idea to stay on top of new and emerging social media trends.

9. Come up with new objectives and action items

At this point, your spreadsheet should be mostly filled out. Now what? The purpose of a social media audit is to give you a better understanding of where you are currently and to make plans for the future.

That might mean growing your followers on a certain channel. Or maybe earning more engagement or aligning your lead gen efforts. You have everything you need to make more informed decisions based on KPIs.

In order to help make your social media assessment more actionable, we included a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis section for each network in the template.

You can use this area to add some high-level analysis based on all the data you collect from your audit. Or to go a step further and conduct a full-blown SWOT analysis after your social media audit. This will highlight your business' most pressing opportunities.

10. Share your audit with your team

Social media shouldn’t be treated like an island. Between the rise of social commerce and social search, the stakes of your presence are arguably greater than ever. That’s why it’s so important to share the results of your audit with your team to:

• Get additional buy-in or resources from managers and key stakeholders
• Develop new marketing content that matches your top-performing post and channels
• Uncover opportunities to align your social presence across departments (think: sales)

No matter what your goals are, having your numbers handy can be a huge help to move forward. This again drives home the value of social media reporting as an ongoing process.

A social media audit template to enhance your strategy

Again, don't let the word "audit" scare you. Our template does the heavy lifting: just plug in your numbers. If you're already using an analytics tool like Sprout, honing in on your key audit metrics is super simple.

Download our free social media audit template

We understand that priorities vary from brand to brand. Feel free to customize your own social media audit template based on your needs. Be sure to include the following:

• Profile information (name and URL)
• Engagement metrics
• Publishing metrics
• Audience demographics
• Referral traffic
• Channel specific metrics

For each metric, include the % change from the previous month or year. Tracking year-over-year metrics makes sense because this accounts for seasonal changes. Think about how retailers often see a surge in social media activity during the holidays. As a result, November and December's numbers can skew month-over-month metrics for January.

When in doubt, conduct your social media audits quarterly. This offers a balance between tracking big-picture trends and making time-sensitive changes.

Examples of an effective social media audit

There is no one-size-fits-all way to conduct your audit. For brands using multiple channels or agencies managing a variety of clients, a dedicated social media management tool is a game-changer. Spreadsheets such as our social media audit template can likewise organize much of the chaos.

Here are some examples of how you can structure your social media audit:

Example #1: The in-depth audit

Below is an example of in-depth audit tracking engagements, growth and publishing frequencies across multiple accounts on Instagram. This sort of audit makes the most sense for brands that are publishing high volumes of content. You can determine fairly quickly what’s moving the needle and whether your accounts are actually growing.

Example #2: The quick audit

There’s also the option of a faster, cursory audit that involves more “yes” or “no” questions.  Below is an example of a simplified social media audit checklist:

• Are our brand logos and creative consistent across channels? (see below)
• Have we posted new content on each network within the past week?
• Have we achieved “inbox zero” for our social customer service questions and concerns?
• Are our bio links pointing to our most recent (or relevant) promotions?
• Which channel is currently our most engaged or fastest growing?

These types of audits can be done quickly because they involve big-picture details and fewer data points. While not super result-driven, cursory audits definitely beat letting your social channels gather cobwebs.

Example #3: The social media agency audit

Social media agencies managing multiple clients with diverse needs often find that presenting audit results in a visually compelling deck, rather than a spreadsheet, is far more effective.

A deck allows agencies to distill complex data into key takeaways, using visuals and concise language to highlight the most important insights. By providing a structured narrative, the deck guides clients through findings and recommendations in a clear, digestible way. This approach not only reinforces the agency’s expertise and professionalism but also makes the audit actionable and easy to understand.

What social media audit tools should I be using?

The depth and frequency of your audits depend largely on your marketing stack.  While templates can help, gathering data points in the first place means having tracking tools in place beforehand. To wrap things up, here’s a snapshot of a few social media audit tools to use.

Sprout Social

Sprout Social simplifies the process of conducting a comprehensive social media audit, making it an invaluable tool for gaining actionable insights and aligning your strategy.

With Sprout’s cross-channel analytics, you can track performance metrics across multiple platforms—all from a single dashboard. Whether it’s Facebook Page impressions, X link clicks, Instagram follower growth, LinkedIn engagement, or Pinterest content performance, Sprout provides an all-in-one solution to monitor, compare and evaluate your social presence.

You can even save time of audit report creation using our Premium Analytics add-on. Dynamic links, selectable metrics and interactive charts and graphs help teams show the impact of their efforts in presentation ready reports.

Google Analytics

Chances are you already have Google Analytics (specifically GA4) set up. If so, integrating your Google data into your audit is a no-brainer. From traffic sources to where most of your social traffic lands, search data can align your social marketing with your search presence.

Salesforce (or CRM)

Anything you can do to illustrate the value of social media to stakeholders is a plus. With a CRM like Salesforce integrated with your social data, you can monitor touchpoints and events that result in tangible outcomes for your business.

Ready to conduct your first social media audit?

Follow these steps to take your social media strategy from “guessing game” to “growth engine.” A thorough social media audit helps you uncover hidden opportunities, refine your content strategy and demonstrate the impact of your efforts.

Download our free social media audit template to get started! To get access to your social metrics all in one place and make every social media audit easier, test out Sprout’s capabilities with a free 30-day trial.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a social media audit do?

A social media audit provides teams with a clear understanding of their current performance by highlighting strengths, weaknesses and opportunities within their current strategy. It also helps ensure social efforts are aligned to business objectives.

What are the six steps to conduct a social media audit?

A social media audit can be completed in the following six steps:

1. Gathering profile data
2. Identifying top-performing posts
3. Assessing follower demographic data
4. Identifying opportunities within emerging platforms
5. Determining updated objectives and action items
6. Sharing audit results with your team

What's included in a social audit?

A social media audit should include a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis section for each network. It should also include action items designed to refine your organization’s approach to social media.

How long does a social media audit take?

The time required for a social media audit varies based on the tools you use. Using native analytics tools, a manual audit can take 1–2 weeks. With an integrated social media management tool, the process can be streamlined to just 2–4 days.

What is a social media audit?

A social media audit involves reviewing your business’ social presence point-by-point. This includes performance metrics and future opportunities to grow and optimize your accounts.