An effective way to determine whether your social networks are delivering maximum impact is by performing a social media audit and identifying areas for improvement.

Here are four major components you should consider in a social media audit:

1. Whether your brand logo or name is shown consistently across different platforms

It can be confusing to your audience if your brand logo, slogan, or name is presented differently on different social channels. To avoid confusion, make sure your brand elements are presented consistently across all platforms.

A primary example is HootSuite. The social media management company uses “HootSuite” as their account name on all of their social media accounts such as their Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ pages. Visually, they use their animated owl brand logo when they tailor their profiles on all their social channels. This consistency improves their brand recognition and recall.

2. Whether you’ve added social sharing buttons on your websites

Social media sharing buttons are icons placed on blogs to help readers share articles conveniently. Social sharing buttons are important because they increase content sharing significantly. According to JeffBullas.com, social sharing icons can improve content sharing by 700%. This means that if your articles currently gain one social share per blog, adding social buttons can help them receive seven.

To add social sharing buttons on your blogs, use plugins such as Shareaholic, AddThis, or ShareThis.

3. Whether you’re performing cross-platform promotion

Cross-platform promotion is an effective way to encourage your social media fans to follow your other social pages. An example of this would be giving reasons for your Twitter followers to ‘like’ your Facebook account or YouTube channel; you could offer special promotions or content not available on Twitter.

This promotion tactic helps you increase your social reach because you’ll engage with users who are only active on particular social platforms. When your Twitter followers ‘like’ your Facebook page and share your content, you reach Facebook account users who are only active on Facebook and not on Twitter. This expansion in social reach will help you improve your social media marketing performance because you’ll engage with more users when publishing a social post.

4. Whether you’re keeping track of your social posts’ click-through rates (CTR)

A useful metric to assess the performance of your social media marketing is CTR.

Examining the CTR helps you determine whether content is attractive to your audience. If you discover that few readers are clicking through the content, you can make adjustments such as creating different kinds of content or headlines or promoting your content at different times.

An easy way to track the CTR is by using a social media management tools such as Buffer, Bit.ly or Twitter Analytics. These tools can display how many clicks a piece of content generates, where the readers are from geographically, and how many users have been exposed to the social content.

A social media audit is a fast, simple way to evaluate your current social media performance. By performing a social media audit, you can determine whether you’re engaging in cross-platform promotion, whether you’ve included social sharing buttons on your website, whether you’re tracking the CTR of your social content, or whether your brand elements are consistent across all social channels. This audit will help you unravel issues with your social media strategy and make proper improvement!

Article Written By: Ray Wang