A social media audit is a structured review of every account your brand runs: who owns it, whether it is secure, how it looks, how it performs and whether it still deserves your time. You can complete a useful one in an afternoon with the ten-step checklist below, then record the results in the copyable template at the end. Repeat it every quarter, or at least twice a year.
Key takeaways
- Start with an inventory. Most brands find at least one forgotten or duplicate account.
- Check access and security before performance; a lost account makes every other metric irrelevant.
- Compare like with like: the same date range, the same metric definitions, per platform.
- Every account should end the audit with one verdict: keep, fix, merge or close.
- An audit is only finished when it produces a short, dated action list.
When you should run a social media audit
Audits are most valuable at turning points. Run one when:
- you are taking over accounts from a colleague, agency or previous owner;
- you are planning next quarter's or next year's strategy;
- results have dropped and you are not sure why;
- your brand has changed name, logo, positioning or website;
- you have added or retired a product line.
Outside those moments, a quarterly light audit (inventory, security, headline numbers) and a fuller annual one keep things under control without becoming a project in itself.
What to gather before you start
Collect these so you are not hunting for logins halfway through:
- Admin access to each account, or at least to its native insights.
- Your website analytics, so you can see which social visits turned into enquiries or sales.
- Last period's goals or KPIs, if you had any.
- Brand guidelines: current logo files, colours, tone of voice and approved bio wording.
- A spreadsheet or document with the template from the end of this article.
The social media audit checklist: 10 steps
1. Build a complete account inventory
Search each network for your brand name, product names and common misspellings. Check your website footer, email signatures and old marketing materials for links to profiles you may have forgotten. Record every profile, including ones run by regional teams, past employees or event campaigns.
For each one, note the network, handle, URL and the date of the last post. Anything without a post in six months is a candidate for closing or reviving.
2. Check ownership, access and security
This is the step people skip and later regret. For each account, answer:
- Which email address and phone number is it registered to? Is that address owned by the business?
- Who has admin or editor access today? Remove anyone who no longer needs it.
- Is two-step verification switched on? Most networks support it, for example Instagram's two-factor authentication settings.
- Are the login details stored in a shared password manager rather than in someone's head?
If you connect accounts to third-party tools, review those connections too and remove apps you no longer use.
3. Review profile consistency
Open each profile as a visitor would. Check that the name, handle, profile picture, banner, bio and website link are current and recognisably the same brand. Look for outdated offers, old opening hours, broken links and mismatched logos. A consistent profile is a quick win that costs nothing but time.
4. Pull performance data with consistent definitions
Use each network's native insights and the same date range for every account (the last 90 days works well). Record a small set of numbers: followers at the start and end, reach, views, engagements, link clicks and posts published.
Be careful when comparing with older reports, because definitions change. Meta, for instance, made views the primary metric for Instagram in August 2024, and its developer blog announced that the Facebook Page impressions metric would be replaced by views from November 2025. An "impressions" figure from an old report and a "views" figure from today's dashboard are not a like-for-like comparison, so note the change in your audit.
5. Analyse your content, not just your numbers
Export or list your posts for the period and tag each one by format (image, carousel, short video, long video, text, link) and by content pillar (educational, behind the scenes, product, community, and so on). Then look for patterns:
- Which formats earn the most engagement per post, rather than in total?
- Which topics get saves, shares and comments, signs that people found them useful?
- Which posts got almost nothing? Is there something they have in common?
If you need a consistent way to compare posts, our article on the engagement rate formula explains the main options.
6. Check who your audience actually is
Native insights show follower demographics, location and active times. Compare them with your intended customer. A local café with mostly overseas followers, or a B2B firm whose audience is mainly students, has a targeting problem worth knowing about.
Small accounts may see little here: Meta's documentation notes that Instagram follower demographics are not returned for accounts with fewer than 100 followers. In that case, rely on who comments and messages you.
7. Trace social traffic to real outcomes
Open your website analytics and look at sessions, sign-ups, enquiries or sales coming from each social network. If the figures are vague or show "(not set)", your links probably lack tracking. Google recommends that you always set utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign on campaign links; make that a rule for the coming quarter.
8. Review community management
Scroll back through comments and messages. How quickly did you respond? Were questions left unanswered? Were complaints handled publicly with care, or ignored? Note recurring questions, because they are both a service gap and a ready-made content list.
9. Take a quick look at competitors
You do not need a full study at this stage. Pick two or three similar brands and note their active platforms, posting frequency and what content seems to resonate. If something stands out, follow up with a proper social media competitor analysis.
10. Give every account a verdict and an action list
For each account choose one:
- Keep: performing and aligned with goals; continue as is.
- Fix: worth keeping, but needs profile updates, a new posting rhythm or better content.
- Merge: duplicates or regional accounts that would be stronger combined.
- Close: inactive, off-audience or impossible to resource. Post a final note pointing to your active profiles before archiving or deleting.
Then write no more than five actions for the next quarter, each with an owner and a deadline. That list, not the spreadsheet, is the real output of the audit.
Social media audit template
Copy this table into a spreadsheet or document, add one row per account and fill it in as you work through the checklist.
| Field | Account 1 | Account 2 | Account 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network | |||
| Handle and URL | |||
| Owner (business email) | |||
| People with admin access | |||
| Two-step verification on? (Y/N) | |||
| Last post date | |||
| Profile up to date? (name, photo, bio, link) | |||
| Followers: start / end of period | |||
| Reach or views (period) | |||
| Total engagements (period) | |||
| Engagement rate (method used) | |||
| Link clicks / website sessions | |||
| Conversions from social (enquiries, sales) | |||
| Posts published (period) | |||
| Best format | |||
| Best content pillar | |||
| Audience matches target? (Y/N, notes) | |||
| Typical reply time to comments and messages | |||
| Verdict (keep / fix / merge / close) | |||
| Top action, owner and deadline |
Add a final row with the date of the audit and the date range you analysed, so the next audit compares the same period.
Turning audit findings into a plan
The audit tells you where you are; the next step is to change what happens each week. Feed your "fix" actions into your social media content calendar, set targets for the coming quarter using your chosen social media KPIs, and book the next audit in your diary now.
If inconsistent posting was one of your findings, a scheduler helps. PilotPost lets you plan posts on a calendar for all your accounts in one place, and keeps a "Needs attention" list with the reason whenever a post fails, so gaps do not go unnoticed. You can see the plans if that would help.
FAQ
How often should you do a social media audit?
A light audit every quarter and a full audit once a year suits most businesses. Also run one whenever you take over accounts, rebrand or see a sudden drop in results. Using the same template and date ranges each time makes the audits easy to compare.
How long does a social media audit take?
For a small business with three or four accounts, a first audit typically takes an afternoon to a day, mostly spent finding logins and pulling data. Later audits are faster because the inventory and template already exist.
What should be included in a social media audit?
At minimum: a full list of accounts, who owns and can access them, security settings, profile consistency, key performance numbers, a content review, audience fit, traffic and conversions from social, and a verdict for each account. The output should be a short action list with owners and deadlines.
What is the difference between a social media audit and a competitor analysis?
An audit looks inwards at your own accounts, access and results. A competitor analysis looks outwards at what similar brands do and how their audiences respond. Many teams do a quick competitor check as part of an audit and a deeper analysis separately.
Should I delete inactive social media accounts?
Not automatically. If the handle matters to your brand, consider keeping it with an updated bio pointing to your active profiles, so nobody else can claim it. Delete accounts only when they are duplicates, confusing to customers, or you are sure you will never need the name.