Social Media Auditing | The Assistance I Offer

Social Media Auditing: Fine-Tuning Your Online Presence for Maximum Impact

Whether we like it or not, social media is a necessary evil, especially for business. It’s become a crucial tool for building an online presence. However, starting out in social media can be overwhelming. First of all, the never-ending list of platforms grows daily. Many businesses then find themselves experimenting with multiple platforms, approaches, and content types before finding a place they’re happy with. This trial-and-error stage is essential to finding the best way to connect for your business. No two businesses are the same, and so neither will be what works for them on socials. This is where my social media auditing service comes in.

As a remote virtual assistant, I offer social media auditing as part of my marketing services. From identifying the right platforms to strengthening a message that’s already working, here’s how my services can help.

Now, let’s be clear at this point—my services do not extend to generating social media content. That is, for any longer (if at all) than is necessary to understand your position and hand it over to someone else. There are plenty of people out there who can do this so much better than I can. My skills are data mining, defining your voice, and creating guidelines. My intention is then to hand that over to your content creator for use.

Review Social Media

Identify the Best Platforms
When you’re just starting out on social media, it’s easy to feel like you need to be on every platform. Guess what? That’s OK. When you start out, you probably will. Even if you don’t use all platforms, you should secure your handle on there to avoid it being claimed by another business. In the long term, the key to a successful social media strategy will be focusing on the platforms where your target audience is most active—and you don’t know that until you start experimenting. Bummer, I know.

But hey, prepare to be surprised by the results. Sure, the trends might say one thing, but you may also find yourself in a position lapping up the attention of a small part of your market on a non-trending platform. This gives you a captive and often engaged audience.

During my social media auditing service, I will help identify those platforms that not only align with your goals, where your audience is engaged with your content, and—most of all—where you feel is the best fit. If you’re selling double-glazed windows, maybe—despite what everyone says—Instagram isn’t going to be the main platform for you. I mean, how many people are liking, commenting on, and sharing double glazing over breakfast? However, Pinterest could be a better fit because your next client could well be building a look book of what they like to show their partner after dinner.

So, whether it’s Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), or others, I’ll analyse your existing social media presence and help you focus your efforts on the channels that will give you the best results—that is, money in the till.

Now I’m going to tell you something that goes against what everyone would lead you to believe… Social media is 80% vanity unless it’s THE ONLY WAY YOUR BUSINESS GENERATES SALES. The likes, the follows, the comments—it’s addictive. But drill down into your client acquisition data, and you’ll most likely see a different story.

And here’s another thing—social media is NOT your party; it’s someone else’s party that you’re performing at.

Say the platform decides not to give you the mic as much as it has been. Say someone hacks your account and you lose everything overnight. It happens—I’ve witnessed the devastation it can cause to a small business. If you’ve ever tried to reach out to a platform’s help desk before, you’ll soon realise how much they don’t care. Do you really want that for your business that you’ve nurtured lovingly into life? No, me neither.

So, my social media strategy will always revolve around getting that person away from that party and back to yours where the real party is at—the place where you own that mic.

Reach Your Target Audience
Finding your feet on social media involves understanding what your audience wants and how to give them that. As part of the audit process, I’ll evaluate your current social media activity to see how well you’re reaching your target audience. By assessing your content, engagement, and demographics, I can glean insight into how to improve your reach.

Together, we can refine your content and strategies to better connect with those who matter. This ensures you’re spending time and resources on the right platforms and in the right way.

Sanity check—your small business is never going to be an ‘influencer’ selling carpets unless there is something exquisitely unique about them. You can, however, use your platform to showcase your work, build a reputation, and become an authority in your field by sharing your knowledge. Remember: Different horses for different courses.

Social Media Health Check

Clarify Messaging
In the early stages of social media, it’s common to experiment with different tones, styles, and messages. And it’s common to change this across platforms because the audiences are different. Whilst this helps you get a feel for what works best, you can, after time, end up with a bit of a social hash.

Remember what I think about likes, comments, and shares? Well, vanity metrics can quickly derail your direction. Yikes… Yep, I’ve seen that too.

“But I’m giving my clients what they want!”

No, no you’re not. Audience is not the same as paying clients. Learn to know the difference.

Holding on tight to your ship in that social sea is hard. But, you can do it!

Want an example? Posting a timelapse of a process whilst garnering 100K views and a huge uplift in followers brought—guess how much—into the till? £0. Yup, that’s right. Why? Because as I said, the audience is NOT the same as those who are going to buy your product or service. What do the real clients want to see? The end product.

So, while you can refocus all your attention on a new kind of content because it’s a hit, in the long term it’s going to kill what you set out to do.

Don’t worry—as you continue to learn about your audience, you’ll refine your messaging, but it makes sense to ‘clean up’ as you go. This ensures clarity and consistency. My social media health check service will help you do this. I will review your posts, captions, and overall tone of voice. I’ll make sure your messaging is clear and consistent and reflects your business where it’s at today. This helps give clarity to your audience about what your business is about today and not five years ago (unless it’s still relevant).

Strengthen Your Brand Identity
Building a strong, recognisable brand identity is essential for standing out on social media. I’m not going to lie—this is harder when the end product doesn’t have unique assets. And when you’re sharing others’ content (like when reselling already branded goods) that’s tough too.

But apps such as Canva can help to make your content easily identifiable on a feed—e.g., adding your logo, text colour, etc.

Over time, as you learn and refine, it’ll be important to ensure that your brand is clearly reflected in your content. I’ll analyse your current social media profiles, posts, and visuals to assess the strength of your brand identity. I’ll help you identify areas for improvement. Whether it’s fine-tuning your aesthetic, using consistent brand colours, or aligning your messaging, I can help.

Quite often, with just some simple amends, you can go on to create content that is easily identified as yours, thus increasing your brand awareness.

Why Social Media Auditing Matters

Social media for business is an ongoing joy for some, a journey for others, but the bane of life for most. Starting out, you may not have all the answers, and that’s okay. Social media is about learning, experimenting, and honing. It’s a process that requires time and consistent effort, but with the right approach the results can be rewarding, even lucrative.

Whether you’re just starting out or looking to refine your existing strategy, I provide expertise that can help guide you.

Together, we’ll make sure your social media efforts are aligned and driving value rather than pain.