What is a social media audit – and why is it essential?

A social media audit is a systematic inventory of all your social media presences. You analyze profile completeness, content performance, engagement patterns, KPI development and the position of your competitors. The result: a clear picture of the current situation and a prioritized list of measures.

The difference between a good and a bad social media presence rarely lies in the budget – it lies in the regularity of the analysis. Companies that audit on a quarterly basis optimize faster, save advertising budget in the long term and react to platform changes at an early stage.

How you proceed depends on the size of your company. For initial orientation, we recommend taking a look at our agency services, which show which depth of analysis makes sense for which type of company.

Step 1 – Inventory and check all channels

Before you analyze anything, you need a complete list of all social media profiles associated with your company – including inactive, forgotten or former employee accounts. Simply use the search function on Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest and X – with company names, product names and name variants.

You record the following basic data in a table for each channel:

• Platform and profile URL
• User name / Handle
• Current number of followers
• Last post (date)
• Responsible person or team
• Link to corporate objectives (yes/no)

Profiles that have been inactive for more than six months and have no strategic function should be deactivated or consolidated. Every channel you actively use costs resources – and a half-hearted presence is worse than none.

Step 2 – Check profile completeness on all channels

Many companies underestimate the influence of a fully completed profile on organic reach and conversion. Platforms such as LinkedIn and Instagram prioritize complete profiles algorithmically. Here is the audit checklist for the profile level:

Step 3 – Systematically evaluate content performance

Content analysis is at the heart of every audit. This is where you decide which formats and topics to scale – and what to adjust. For each active channel, go back at least 90 days and export the performance data from the respective native analytics tool (Meta Business Suite, LinkedIn Analytics, TikTok Analytics, etc.).

Sort all posts by reach, engagement rate and saves/shares. These three metrics show different things:

• Reach shows how much the algorithm distributes your content
• Engagement rate shows how relevant the content is for your target group
• Saves/shares show real added value – these are the most valuable interactions

Identify the top 10 posts and the flop 10 posts. Search for patterns: Which formats, topics, posting times or image styles perform better? The analysis often shows clear clusters – for example, that carousel posts with specific tips generate three times as many saves as pure brand posts.

Agency tip: Don’t just evaluate absolute figures, but always the engagement rate (interactions divided by reach). A post with 200 likes at 500 reach is more valuable than one with 200 likes at 50,000 reach. Only the engagement rate shows you whether your content is really relevant – and not just seen by many people by chance.

For an in-depth look at the right metrics, it’s worth reading our article on social media KPIs for companies – where we explain which metrics are really relevant for decision-making and which you can ignore.

Step 4 – Evaluate KPIs and recalibrate targets

An audit without a target comparison is worthless. In the fourth step, you compare each measured KPI with a target value. If you have not yet defined any target values, now is the right time – derived from industry benchmarks and your own previous quarter’s data.

Typical benchmark values for B2B companies in Germany:

• LinkedIn engagement rate: 2-4 % good, over 5 % very good
• Instagram engagement rate: 1-3 % good, over 4 % very good
• TikTok completion rate: over 50 % is the target
• Follower growth: 3-8 % per month as a healthy guideline
• Social-to-website traffic: 5-15% of total traffic for B2B

Every deviation between actual and target is a field of action. Prioritize by impact: Which improvement will have the greatest effect on your business goals? Building on clean reporting for managers helps enormously – find out more in our guide to social media reporting for managers.

Step 5 – Competitive analysis as a strategy anchor

No audit is complete without a look at the competition. It’s not about copying – it’s about finding gaps that you can fill and understanding strengths that you need to differentiate yourself against.

Analyze the following points for 3-5 direct competitors:

• Which channels are actively used?
• How high are follower numbers and growth?
• Which content formats dominate?
• Which topics and keywords does the competitor focus on?
• How is the community interaction (do they respond, do the followers praise, is there criticism)?

Tools such as SimilarWeb, Sprout Social or native platform insights can help with this. You can find a complete overview of the best tools and methods in our article on social media competition analysis for companies.

The result of the competitive analysis should always be a clear answer to this question: What do we do differently and better than the others – and how do we communicate this on our channels?

Step 6 – Transfer audit results into an action plan

The last step is the most important – and the one where most companies fail. An audit without a concrete action plan is a wasted analysis. Structure your measures into three categories:

• Quick wins (can be implemented immediately): Profile optimizations, retrofit UTM tagging, improve response time, deactivate inactive profiles
• Medium-term (4-8 weeks): Adapt content strategy, revise editorial plan, test new formats
• Strategic (quarter): Reprioritize channel strategy, adjust budget allocation, evaluate new platforms

Every measure needs a responsible person, a date and a success criterion. Only then will the audit become an actual improvement – and not a checklist.

If you are unsure whether your internal team can fully implement the audit, it is worth looking for external support. You can find more information on this under Contact us.

Frequently asked questions about the social media audit

More on the topic: Social media monitoring – competition analysis – calculate ROI – plan your budget

Related articles

• Social media agency – services and expertise
• Social media KPIs: What really counts
• Social media competition analysis: tools and methods
• Social media reporting for managers
• Contact – Request a social media audit

Instagram Insights stats

Here you can see which statistics are displayed on Instagram Insights:

• Demographic data
• Current highlights with the most important performance increases
• Overview with content interactions, total number of subscribers and accounts reached

Insights quickly explained

Insights briefly explained:

• Analytics and performance statistics in the Instagram app
• Insights on follower demographics, post reach, when followers are most likely to be online, and content interactions

Internet ratings are too often ignored

Everyone is talking about online marketing, performance optimization and sales funnels. That’s great! But companies often forget the “simple things”.

Today we present you an extremely simple, at the same time efficient, marketing method:

The “small, first, good assessment

Extremely underrated, someone hears about “you” and searches for “you” directly on smartphone.

• Search query 1: “Company X
• Search query 2: “Company X reviews”

Now, if you have only one rating, it makes up the “whole” digital image of your company.

If interested in a rating?

Study: Influence of online ratings

Let’Let’s take a look at whether people care. For that, here’s an old and proven study. When you read online reviews about products or services, to what extent do they influence you?

Depending on the age group:

• 91-95% – ratings provide orientation
• 78-90% – Increase confidence in an offer
• 74-89% – Influence the purchase decision
• 53-57% – Ratings provide inspiration.

You can find more statistics at Statista

A real killer for startups in particular

Just one negative rating can be a real killer, especially for startups. Even without this effect, statistically 90% of startups fail in the first 5 years. So every strategic advantage helps in the “fight” for survival.

Even companies that have been on the market for over 10 years according to the commercial register tend to forget their digital reputation. Of course, you have the advantage of already having regular customers and (offline) referral marketing, word-of-mouth.

Example: 1 star / 5 stars in comparison

Here is a practical example of how a 1-star rating compares to a 5-star rating.

Important – you will now look at the Google Maps screenshot for 5 or even 10 seconds. In a real situation, looking for a company for task X, you would pay attention to a strange company only 2, 3 seconds and then, directly click on the next one.

1 star rating: Bad for your online image

5 star rating: Good for your online image

Disadvantages of bad ratings

You can probably already guess the disadvantages of bad reviews.

You lose prospects and customers – disadvantage 1

You lose prospects looking for you, reviews or experience. Remember the study. 90% or more, use reviews to guide their buying decisions. 74-89% are also directly influenced by reviews when it comes to actually buying. Let’s say half of the prospects don’t call them. What if you could change that, in just 3, 4 minutes? You can!

Tip. Change now, in 3, 4 minutes

Now go to Google Business, enter your company and ask acquaintances, colleagues or business partners to give the first, second or even third positive review.

• 91-95% – ratings provide orientation
• 74-89% – Influence the purchase decision

Algorithm excludes your company – disadvantage 2

There is one more reason why you should take care of your Google reviews. If your ratings are too bad, the algorithm simply does not show you anymore. Especially in cities with high competition density very unfavorable for your new customer acquisition.

An algorithm decides what “happens”, i.e. what is shown, done and what is not. The criteria for this are set by people and programmers make a program code out of it, the algorithm. A small program code that evaluates content.

Simply put, the algorithm might look like this:

• Rating < 2 stars: Do not show if sufficient > 2 stars available
• Rating < 3 stars: Do not show if sufficient > 3 stars available
• Rating < 4 stars: Do not show if sufficient > 4 stars available
• …

Reviews on Facebook, Kununu, etc.

There are many online rating platforms, whether rating platform itself (like Kununu for employers) or social networks like Facebook. So already in the first steps of your marketing concept, you should think about the “small, first, good evaluation”.

Become a Performance Marketing Manager at One

From the newsletter funnel to the KPIs – performance marketing includes a mix of online marketing tools. We present you here all areas and advantages, step by step. You will get to know: Social Media, Email Marketing, Affiliates, Display and Native Advertising, but also Content Marketing, Search Engine Ads and lastly Search Engine Optimization. Everything starts with the right strategy and a good performance marketing agency that understands your craft.

• Performance marketing

Already seen and done everything? Perfect! Send us your application.

• Email: office@socialmediaone.de
• Subject: Application Performance Marketing
• Appendix: Application and curriculum vitae

You can expect an international and dynamic working atmosphere. And yes… We celebrate successes together at events. We always have an open ear for your ideas! You can permanently contribute your other skills and take on a leading role in the future.

Your profile in Performance Marketing

• Professional experience in the field (agency side or client side)
• You like to be on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok & Co.
• You know current trends and topics
• You work conscientiously
• Willing to learn, responsible, reflective

Your salary, vacation & Co.

We evaluate your qualities individually! In Performance Marketing Management, we offer you a fair to very good salary and additional opportunities for bonuses, depending on the skills you bring to the table.

• Salary: By arrangement
• Salary: By arrangement

Collaboration with our partners, customers and our team members: Welcome to One! We look forward to receiving your application.

All jobs: Agency overview

Business Development for new clients of our agency, Performance Marketing for existing clients, Social Marketing, Social Ads, Google Ads, Content Marketing, we are always looking for talent. Here you can find all jobs in an overview:

• Jobs

Customers: A selection