The Best Way to Write a Social Media Audit

October 13, 2011 - Last Modified: April 1, 2014 by Crystal J. Briscoe 1,652

So, you want to write a social media audit and you want to learn about what would be the best way to do this? Well, you are at the right place at the moment. In this article, we will be describing this process in detail.

If you have to write a social media audit for your client then you have to keep in your mind that sometimes this audit can take a long time to complete. You may think that you will be done with this audit in a few days but it may take up to weeks. However, the audit should be satisfactory for you and the client as well.

The questions that you may have to answer will change from client to client. So, you must know about the goals that your client wants to achieve so that you can come up with exactly the same thing that your client is looking for. For example, a customer may want to start a twitter service so that they can decrease the cost of customer services by providing customer service on twitter. This is a simple example of the requirements that a client may put in front of you.

There is a pattern that you will have to follow. No social media audit report is acceptable if a proper pattern is not followed while preparing that report. So, read the pattern below properly so that you can apply it to your own social media audit report as well.

Introduction & Executive Summary

In this section, you should explain about the goals that can be achieved through social media and the method that will be used. So, this section will cover everything about the social media introduction and its use in corporate sector. You should also explain about the advancements and the future possibilities of the social media advertisement.

Internal review & benchmarking

In this section, you should talk about the things that have already been done by the client in social media. You should describe the things already done by him and those things that are not yet tried. You should also give suggestions about a few things that can be done in order to promote the social media campaign of your client.

External review & competitor analysis

In this section, you will not analyze the client’s social media campaign but you should analyze the campaign run by competitors. This will help to analyze what is required to do in order to beat the competitor.

Campaign structure & approach

Finally, you will give a structure to the client about the campaign that you will run for him or he should run. You will also give him suggestions about the approach that can be successful for him in the long run. You should also tell the client about the possibilities of success ratio about any approach with references.

It is very important to keep these things in your mind when you are writing a social media audit for yourself or for your client.

{ 12 Responses }

katie says:

Thanks so much for this..I was recently asked to write a social media audit template..being just an intern I kind of panicked. This was great info!
Jamie Northrup says:

Thanks for the post, the link to the 20 questions to ask from Techipedia for an audit were very helpful as well. Do you know of any templates available that can be used for an audit?
- Dorien Morin-van Dam says:
  
  Jamie, I wrote a template for a social media self audit and posted it my website recently. Feel free to go check it out and use it. You can find it here: http://moreinmedia.com/2011/11/social-media-self-audit-template/ The audit is simple to do and will take 1-2 hours. It is mainly used as a starting point for a new social media strategy for new clients. It can be adapted and used for current clients and do a yearly review. Let me know if you like it by leaving a reply to my blog. Dorien.
Ana says:

I also think that revising what the competition has is extremely important. Somebody already pointed out that this is important because you want to see what are their advantages and downfalls. Also, I think it's important because you don't want to copy somebody else. Looking like copycat, even when it comes to this kind of audit is never a good idea.
Nick Stamoulis says:

Competitor analysis is extremely important. You shouldn't copy their strategy, but it can provide key insights about what works and what doesn't work in the industry. Too often it seems like people skip this step.
John says:

Hi Crystal, Thanks for sharing interesting post, I like your point "External review & competitor analysis". Generally people ignore this point and then they have to face lots of problems. Within just four point you had described complete Social Media Audit, heads off to you!!!! Thanks John
Kavya Hari says:

It has an valuable points about internal social media campaigns. Thank you so much for sharing your post on here :)
Extreme John says:

Very valuable post. I love the tips. Using all of these, one can already create an excellent social media audit. There is a lot to do when it comes to social media marketing. So much that if we don't utilize them well, we might miss a golden opportunity for our business or for our client's business. Excellent tips indeed. Thanks for the share.
Kelly Sarah says:

Set up a cross-discipline social media team. Tap into the conversations – social audit. Map your social graph. Write a social media policy. Develop a social media strategies.
sai says:

very good facts on social media .Internal review & benchmarking is very good
Joe says:

I was once asked by my clients for social media audit but that time i was unknown by the facts of social media auditing.i guess it would be lot better if i have come across your post at that time.still is helpful for me from now onwards. Thank u.
- Crystal J. Briscoe says:
  
  Thank You Joe, If you need help regarding preparing social media audit report you can contact me I will try my best to help you

About Crystal J. Briscoe

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