Why Your Brand Needs a Social Media Audit
Thursday 27th February 2025
by Beth Perrin
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A social media audit is a highly valuable tool for your business. Conducting one will not only help you identify your strengths and weaknesses, it will also give you the insights you need to make key changes to your strategy. If you feel that your brand’s reputation is currently being damaged by a substandard social presence, read on to discover how an audit will provide you with the data and tools you need to get back on track.
What is a Social Media Audit?
Let’s start with the basics - what exactly is a social media audit? It’s a digital marketing task that involves analysing and reviewing your brand’s current social media strategy in order to find out which areas you’re excelling in and which ones need improvement. This can include everything from your content (copy, images and videos), to your comment and message responses, plus additional behind-the-scenes factors such as account access, page roles and security.
Alternatively, a competitor audit can be carried out to see what other brands in your industry are doing on social media, and how your strategy compares. Checking out your competitors’ pages enables you to see if you’re missing any important opportunities to boost engagement and gain new fans, or if there are any gaps in the market that your business can potentially fill.
Page Optimisation
The first stage of a social media audit involves checking that all of your pages are optimised and that all of the relevant sections have been filled out.
• Cover photos and profile pictures
Make sure that your chosen images work well on both desktop and mobile - they should be cropped correctly and not blurry or distorted. Check that they are consistent across all platforms and that all of your business locations are using the same design or photo style, so customers can see that they all belong to the same brand. If you’ve recently undergone a rebrand, make sure all of your locations have updated their profiles to your new style.
• @Usernames
Check that all of your business locations are using the same username format and that your usernames closely match your page names (for example, our Instagram handle is @3sixfivesocialmedia and our page name is 3sixfive). If your business has more than one store in a specific town or city, make sure the exact location is included in the username or page name so customers know which store they are interacting with.
• Business info
Make sure your bio or ‘About’ section contains all of the details your followers need to know, such as your opening times, phone number, website and email address. Check that this information matches up with your Google business listing and other online directories to avoid discrepancies between them.
• Business type/category
Check that all of your pages are listed as the correct category and that the same one is used by all of your locations (for example, Donut shop or Hotel).
• Tabs and sections
Facebook offers a range of different sections (such as About, Photos, Videos, Reviews, Groups, Mentions and Services) that you can display along the top of your page as clickable tabs. Check that the most relevant ones for your business are visible on yours.
Removal of Inappropriate Content
Inappropriate content poses a direct risk to your brand’s reputation. If a branch of your business has been sharing posts on social media that include profanity, nudity, strong political views, offensive language or crude humour - or posts that don’t relate to your brand at all - customers and followers may become upset, annoyed or even disgusted, ultimately deterring them from using your brand in the future. In fact, as many as 67% of consumers say they will unfollow a brand if it posts irrelevant content.
It’s vital that content of this nature is removed immediately and that the person responsible for posting it is notified of its unsuitability, which is why this is one of the main mistakes we’ll look for during your audit.
Post Frequency
Posting too often can be irritating for your audience and may cause them to unfollow or mute your page, with 42% of social media users confirming that they will unfollow a brand if it posts too frequently. However, on the other hand, not posting enough can give the impression that your page is no longer active, or that you’re not available to talk to your customers.
As part of your audit, we’ll take a look at the frequency of your brand’s posts to make sure you’re meeting the needs of your fans, but not overloading them with excessive messaging. We’ll also check for repetitive content and duplicated posts as these can harm your brand’s reach and cause further irritation for your followers.
Copyrighted Media & UGC Consent
During your social media audit, we’ll check for any potential copyright infringements, such as stock photos, videos and graphics that have been posted on your pages. Of course, if your brand has a license to download and use media from a stock library such as Adobe Stock or Shutterstock, this isn’t a problem - but sometimes, images are shared on social media without the necessary permissions being obtained, which can result in hefty fines from the copyright holder.
The same goes for UGC (user generated content). Downloading and sharing photos, videos and testimonials from customers without their consent is another violation of copyright and privacy, so we’ll check that you’re asking for permission and giving credit where appropriate.
Tone of Voice
If your business has multiple locations or divisions - and therefore multiple social media pages being run by different people - it’s important to check that your brand’s tone of voice is being correctly adhered to across all accounts. This is another element that can be achieved with a social media audit.
Using different tones of voice or communication styles on each page will result in a lack of consistency and can weaken your brand identity. 90% of customers agree that brands should deliver a consistent experience, plus 71% of businesses agree that inconsistent brand presentation leads to customer confusion, so it’s vital to ensure that your social media presence isn’t disjointed.
Response Times & Quality
A social media audit isn’t just great for assessing your content - it’s a good way to measure the success of your Community Management and Customer Service too. We’ll take a look at your public comment responses to see how you’re interacting with your fans and followers - and, if you’re happy to give us access to your social media inboxes, we’ll analyse your private message responses too.
We’ll also measure your average response times, see how well you’re managing complaints, and identify any missed opportunities to spark conversations and build brand love. In addition, we can find out if you’re responding to reviews on social media and other feedback platforms such as Trustpilot, Google and Tripadvisor - and if so, how effective your responses are. After all, 7 in 10 people believe that a brand’s response to a review has the power to change their perception of it.
GDPR and Data Consent
Another huge factor that has the potential to harm your brand reputation is customer privacy. We can make sure you’re handling sensitive data carefully and are adhering to the GDPR and other data consent laws, both in your public comments and your private messages. If you’re sharing content that contains any personal information about your customers, such as a review which displays their full name, this constitutes a GDPR breach too, so we’ll notify you of any instances where this has taken place and will ensure these posts are removed.
Account Access & Page Roles
In the Business Suite, Meta’s business management platform for both Facebook and Instagram, admins can assign and remove page roles for all of the different people who work on your page. These roles include Editor, Moderator and Community Manager, and determine which actions each person can and can’t take on your page. It’s important to check that each person has been assigned the correct role for their job, and that anyone who should no longer have access has been removed, such as ex employees or former agency partners.
Having too many unnecessary users in your business manager can make the backend of your accounts feel cluttered and confusing with lots of different names and roles being listed, while also posing a big risk to your page security and therefore your brand reputation.
Unclaimed Pages
Similarly, unclaimed, unofficial and duplicate pages can cause further confusion for you and your customers. On Facebook, unofficial pages are automatically created for your business when someone checks in or tags one of your locations that doesn’t already have an individual page. If your company goes by multiple names, or has a nickname, extra pages tend to get created for every variation of that name.
You may also end up with duplicate pages if your business has undergone a rebrand and started a new page under a different name without removing the previous one (or if you forgot the login details or got locked out of an old account!).
During your audit, we’ll thoroughly search through each social media platform to make sure your brand doesn’t have any unclaimed or old pages that require deletion or need to be merged with your new one.
Training Opportunities
A social media audit can help you identify training opportunities in all of the areas outlined above. Whether your team needs a refresher on social media competition rules, best practices regarding image sizing and quality, tone of voice or how to respond to customer messages, an audit will reveal any aspects where confidence may be lacking and extra support is required.
From here, you can arrange workshops and training sessions with anyone who is going to be working on your social media pages, and create a guideline document detailing exactly how your brand should be represented online, with concrete do’s and don’ts.
Summary
A social media audit - especially one carried out by a third party - is the perfect first step to take towards improving your brand’s reputation, particularly if you have multiple location pages and numerous accounts being managed by different teams. The public’s perception of your business is highly important, so if your social presence isn’t up to standard, you could be missing out on opportunities to gain new customers or even losing your existing ones. Ready to arrange your audit? Get in touch with our team today to discuss your goals.
