Conducting a social media audit is a key part of a social media marketing plan. This assesses how well your current social media use works for you.

There are a number of different steps involved in this process, so we have put together a social media audit template to help you conduct your first (or second, or third…) one more efficiently.We’ve also put together this six-step guide on how to execute a social media marketing audit.

What is a social media audit?
A social media audit is a regular examination of social channels that represent your brand—including both your business’ owned profiles and imposter accounts.

The purpose is to ensure that each of your profiles are on brand and functioning correctly, identify and shut down any rogue or abandoned accounts, and ensure that you’re using the channels that make the most sense for your brand.

A 6-step guide to conducting a social media audit
Step 1: Create a social media audit spreadsheet
Your social media audit needs a home, which is why you need a spreadsheet. As you go through these six steps, you’ll see that the spreadsheet will start automatically adding new columns.

To start, create a column for each social network, URL to your profile on that social network, and owner. The “Owner” field may seem superfluous, but it’s actually really important to keep track of this information—it allows you to know who owns the password and who is in charge of posting and engaging with followers on that social profile.

Step 2: Go on a search for your social presence on Google
Go to Google and search your company name to see which social media profiles show up. This will allow you to see if there are any rogue accounts or imposters using your company name. It also gives you the opportunity to find out if the right social media profiles are appearing on in search results.

You can either create a separate spreadsheet to track the results of this search, or add a new column—labelled “Shutdown Y/N”—in the original spreadsheet. The purpose of this is to keep track of whether you need to track down an imposter to tell them to shut down their account, or contact the social network to ask them to intervene in the matter.

Step 3: Evaluate your social media profiles
This is an important part of your social media audit. As with your social media marketing plan, you need to constantly be evaluating your social media profiles.

During the evaluation process, create a mission statement for each profile. Make sure each profile aligns with your business goals and objectives. This will help you decide whether being present on that social network contributes to your overall strategy and whether or not it makes sense for your business to keep that profile.

Step 4: Make sure your social media profiles are on brand
Now that you know which social media profiles you’re going to keep, it’s time to check that each of these profiles meet your brand standards for imagery, style, etc.

This means making sure you have a proper profile photo, cover image, icons, bios and descriptions, correct URL, etc.Step 5: Centralize the ownership of your passwords
The process of doing a social media audit can help you make sure that all your social media profiles are secure. One way to test this is by centralizing the ownership of the passwords for each profile. For example: you can have your IT department own the key to all the passwords for the social media profiles. Then use a password managing tool like LastPass to share access on a need-to-use basis.

Step 6: Create a process
Once you’re done your social media audit, it’s time to take what you learned and create an internal process when it comes to creating new social profiles going forward. Create a criteria and take note of who will approve the requests.

For example, take note of:

The requester
Who the target audience is
What type of content will be posted to this profile
Who is responsible for posting and engagement
Use the information you’ve discovered through your social media marketing audit to build a more robust social media strategy. Then, put it to work using Hootsuite to schedule posts, engage with followers, and monitor your efforts.