How to Check Your Social Media Presence

Checking your social media presence is the single most effective way to understand what's working, what's not, and where you should focus your energy next. This guide will walk you through a complete social media audit, giving you a clear, step-by-step process for analyzing your performance and building a smarter strategy from your findings.

Why You Need to Check Your Social Media Presence Regularly

Think of a social media audit as a health checkup for your brand online. It’s a process of reviewing your social media accounts to see how they're performing against your goals. Without this regular analysis, you're essentially posting in the dark - you might be wasting time on platforms that don't reach your audience, creating content that doesn't resonate, or missing huge opportunities for growth. A good audit helps you stop guessing and start making strategic decisions based on real data.

Here’s what you gain from it:

• Clarity on what's working: Identify your best-performing content, formats, and platforms.
• Strategy refinement: Spot gaps in your content plan and find opportunities for improvement.
• Brand consistency: Verify that your branding, messaging, and voice are consistent across all channels.
• Competitive insights: See how you stack up against your competitors and what you can learn from them.

Getting Started: Your Pre-Audit Toolkit

Before you get into the analysis, a little preparation will make the entire process smoother. You don't need fancy tools to get started, a simple spreadsheet is often the most powerful weapon in your arsenal.

1. Create a Master Spreadsheet

Open up Google Sheets or Excel. This is where you'll log all your findings. Create separate tabs for each social media platform you're on (e.g., "Instagram," "TikTok," "LinkedIn"). On each tab, create columns for key information. Here’s a simple starting template:

• Profile URL: A direct link to the profile.
• Profile Basics: Username, Bio, Profile Photo, Cover Photo (are they complete and consistent?).
• Audience: Follower Count, Demographics.
• Performance Metrics (Monthly): Engagement Rate, Post Reach, Video Views, Website Clicks, etc.
• Top 3 Posts (this month): Note the format, topic, and key metric for each.
• Bottom 3 Posts (this month): Note the format, topic, and key metric for each.
• Notes & Action Items: A space for your thoughts and next steps.

2. Gather Your Logins

Make sure you have access to the native analytics for each platform. You'll need to be logged in as an admin or have access to business/creator accounts to see detailed performance data.

• Instagram: Professional Dashboard > Account Insights
• TikTok: Creator Tools > Analytics
• Facebook: Meta Business Suite > Insights
• X (formerly Twitter): Analytics (analytics.twitter.com)
• LinkedIn (Company Page): Analytics Tab

A Step-by-Step Guide to Auditing Your Social Media Presence

Once your toolkit is ready, it's time to get into the audit. Follow these steps methodically for each platform you're active on.

Step 1: Locate All Your Branded Accounts

First, you need a complete list of every account representing your brand. This includes official channels, old or abandoned accounts, and even unauthorized accounts that might be using your name or branding.

• Search Your Brand Name: Go to each social platform and search for your brand name, common variations, and old product names. Are there outdated profiles from a previous campaign? Or a profile set up by a former employee?
• Google It: Do a Google search like "Your Brand Name" site:instagram.com or "Your Brand Name" site:tiktok.com. This sometimes uncovers profiles that are harder to find through the platform’s native search.

Add every account you find to your spreadsheet. For any outdated or unofficial accounts, your action item is to either gain control and update them or try to get them taken down.

Step 2: Check for Brand Consistency

Your social media profiles are often the first impression a potential customer has of your brand. Inconsistencies can look unprofessional and create confusion. For each official profile, review the following:

Profile & Cover Photos

Is your logo or brand image clear, high-resolution, and consistent across all platforms? Dimensions for profile pictures and cover photos vary by platform, so make sure they are optimized and not pixelated or awkwardly cropped.

Username & Handle

Is your username (@handle) the same everywhere? If your ideal handle is taken on one platform, is your alternative simple and easy to remember? Consistency makes it easier for your audience to find and tag you.

Bio & Description

Your bio sells your brand in just a few seconds. Check each one for a clear, concise description of what you do. Does it reflect your current brand voice and messaging? Most importantly, is there a clear call-to-action (CTA)? This could be a link to your website, a new product, or a newsletter signup using a tool like Linktree.

Step 3: Analyze Your Content Performance

This is where data comes in. Here, your goal is to understand what types of content resonate with your audience and which fall flat. Look at your native analytics for the last 30-90 days.

Identify Your Top-Performing Posts

Sort your posts by engagement (likes, comments, shares, saves) and by reach/views. Identify the top 3-5 posts and ask yourself:

• What format did they use? (e.g., Reel, carousel, static image, Story poll).
• What was the topic? (e.g., behind-the-scenes, educational tutorial, user-generated content, a funny meme).
• What was the vibe or tone? (e.g., inspirational, humorous, informative).
• Was there a specific CTA?

Document these trends in your spreadsheet. You just found a recipe for content that works. Your action item is to create more of it.

Analyze Your Low-Performing Posts

Now do the opposite. Find the content that got the least engagement or reach. It’s just as important to understand what your audience doesn't like. Was it too salesy? Was the visual quality poor? Was the topic uninteresting? Don't be afraid to stop doing things that aren't working.

Review Your Content Mix and Formats

Look at your grid or feed as a whole. What’s the balance? For example, are you posting 90% promotional content and only 10% content that provides value? A healthy mix is often 80% value (educational, entertaining) and 20% promotion. Are you leaning too heavily on static images when your audience clearly loves video? Your metrics should guide your format strategy.

Step 4: Understand Your Audience

The best content in the world will fail if it's shown to the wrong people at the wrong time. Go into your audience analytics on each platform.

• Demographics: Look at the age, gender, and location data of your followers. Does this align with your target customer profile? If you're a local business in Austin, Texas, but 50% of your audience is in California, you might have a targeting problem.
• Active Times: Every platform will show you the days and hours your audience is most active online. Are you scheduling your posts to go live during these peak times? If not, that's an easy win right there.

Step 5: Benchmark Against Your Competitors

You’re not operating in a vacuum. Choose 2-3 direct competitors and briefly analyze their presence. Don’t get stuck on vanity metrics like follower counts. Instead, look for strategic insights:

• What's their top-performing content? What topics and formats are working for them? This can be a source of inspiration.
• How are they engaging with their community? Do they reply to a lot of comments? What's their response tone like?
• Is there a gap in their content strategy? Maybe they never show behind-the-scenes content or they aren't using TikTok yet. This could be an opportunity for you to dominate a niche.

Step 6: Create an Action Plan

The final, most important step, is turning your findings into a concrete plan. Based on your spreadsheet and analysis, define your goals and a list of specific, achievable tasks. A good action plan might look like this:

• Q3 Goal: Increase Instagram engagement rate by 2%.
• Action Items:
  • Update LinkedIn and Facebook cover photos to match new branding.
  • Test posting three Reels per week on Instagram, focused on tutorials (based on top-performing content).
  • Shift scheduled post times from 9 AM to 7 PM to align with audience peak activity.
  • Remove the link to the outdated promo page from our X bio.

Finally, schedule your next audit. A quarterly check-in is a great cadence for most businesses. It’s frequent enough to adapt to trends but not so frequent that you don’t have enough data to analyze any changes.

Final Thoughts

Performing a social media audit turns your social strategy from a collection of random tactics into a targeted, data-backed plan for growth. By systematically reviewing your profiles, content, audience, and competition, you gain the clarity needed to create content that truly connects and moves your brand forward.

We know that digging through analytics on multiple platforms can feel fragmented and time-consuming. That's why we built Postbase with a clean, unified analytics dashboard that shows you what’s working across all your accounts in one spot. Instead of bouncing between platforms to piece together your performance, you can get the insights you need to build a better strategy, faster.