By Emma Fitzpatrick
Ah, the New Year is here and brimming with opportunity. ‘Tis the season to pause and reflect in order to make meaningful change in 2017.
This moment is especially rare and even more essential in the realm of social media marketing, where everything seems to move at hyper-speed. There’s the endless stream of content to scroll through, along with the ambitious goals you set for your bank. How are you going to create fresh, engaging content week after week?
To start, look at last year’s successes. When you pinpoint the micro-moments that performed best, the big picture starts to come into focus. You’ll see what worked, what didn’t, and what you need more of next year. In essence, you’re conducting a social media audit. You review each of your bank’s profiles, ask the important questions, and mine the right data.
By taking the time to look back, you’ll make moving forward much easier—and far more productive.
How to conduct a social media audit in 10 steps.
1. First thing’s first: open a spreadsheet and get cozy.
2. Start compiling the basics. For each social network (including the ones you’re not active on), create a column for your:
- URL
- Bio, hours and info about the company
- Profile and cover photo
- Number of followers
- Average number of weekly posts
3. Make recommendations and updates as necessary to unify your brand imagery and messaging. It’s generally a good practice to review and freshen up these sections annually – or even quarterly.
4. Add a new column called “Goals for 2017.” Input your strategy for each social platform, and catalog your reflections. Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
- Did you meet your goals for last year? Why or why not?
- Do your goals for each platform sound nearly identical? How can you diversify?
- Is your time (daily, weekly and monthly) well spent on each network?
5. Time to think growth. Add a new column to track the size of your audience from January 2016 to January 2017. Which platforms are growing the most or the fastest? And, most importantly, why? Often, it’s because of an increased investment of time, money or creativity. Also, note how prominent each network is on your website since that can significantly impact a network’s growth rate.
6. Now, time to deep dive into your content. On each platform, track:
- Content type: What content performs best on each network? Most often, visual content, like videos, images and infographics, drive the most engagement and reach. That said, stories with links are popular too.
- Conversion rate: Find out what content drove people to action.
- Engagement: Detail the average number of comments and likes on your posts.
- Amplification rate: See how often (and what type of content) people share the most.
- Timing: Pinpoint what day of the week and time of day your content performs best.
7. Discover the crème de la crème. Extract the posts that got the highest conversation rate, most engagement, and most shares. What made those posts work so well, and how can you duplicate their successes?
8. On the flip side, identify the posts that had the lowest number of conversions and minimal engagement. What did these posts lack? How can you avoid creating something similar in 2017?
9. You’ve got all the data, so it’s time to look at the big picture and make big decisions. Use this info to decide which networks to focus more or less on in 2017. Pen your strategy, set new goals and detail how often you want to post. It may be helpful to compile “Takeaway tips for great posts” that detail the best do’s and don’ts for content on that platform.
10. Rock your social content in 2017!
Emma Fitzpatrick is a Philly-based freelance writer and marketer, whose specialties include content marketing, social marketing and short, snappy writing. Pick her brain at emma.l.fitzpatrick@gmail.com.
