How to Do a Social Media Audit for a Client

Performing a social media audit for a new client is the single most important thing you can do to set your partnership up for success. It transforms guesswork into a data-backed strategy, giving you a clear roadmap for what's working, what's not, and where the biggest opportunities lie. This guide will walk you through the entire process, step-by-step, so you can confidently diagnose a client's social media presence and build a plan that gets real results.

First Things First: The Pre-Audit Kick-Off Meeting

Before you even look at a single metric, you need to align with your client. An audit is useless if it isn't measured against the right business goals. This initial meeting is about getting clarity and setting the stage for your entire strategy. Don't skip it.

Understand Their "Why"

You can't build a roadmap without knowing the destination. Ask your client direct questions to understand their core business objectives. Are they looking to:

• Increase brand awareness?
• Generate more qualified leads?
• Drive direct sales or e-commerce transactions?
• Build a community and boost brand loyalty?
• Establish themselves as a thought leader in their industry?

Their answer will fundamentally change which metrics you prioritize. "Likes" might be a great indicator of brand awareness, but they're a vanity metric if the real goal is lead generation.

Define the Target Audience

Ask your client to describe their ideal customer in detail. Go beyond basic demographics like age and location. Dig into their psychographics:

• What are their pain points?
• What are their interests and hobbies?
• What social media platforms do they actually use, and how do they use them?
• Where do they get new information?

This information will help you evaluate if their current social media efforts are actually reaching the right people. Spoiler alert: they're often not.

Get the Keys to the Kingdom

Finally, handle the logistics. You'll need access to every platform they're on. Create a secure, shared document - like a locked spreadsheet or password manager entry - to get the login credentials for every social account. This includes platforms they may have forgotten about, like an old Pinterest or a dusty X (formerly Twitter) account. While you're at it, ask for access to their website analytics (e.g., Google Analytics 4) so you can track social media's impact on web traffic and conversions.

Step 1: Locate and Secure All Social Media Profiles

Now that you're aligned with the client, it’s time to find every online account associated with their brand. Start with the list they gave you, but don't stop there. Search for their brand name on every major platform: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.

During this search, you're looking for three things:

1. Official Profiles: Confirm you have the credentials for every account they own.
2. Forgotten Profiles: You'll often find old, abandoned accounts the client created years ago. These need to be either reclaimed and updated or properly deleted to avoid brand confusion.
3. Imposter/Fan Accounts: Note any accounts impersonating the brand or built by fans. These can be harmless, but malicious imposter accounts should be reported to the platform.

Create a simple spreadsheet listing every profile you find, its URL, login status (i.e., you have access), and any immediate notes.

Step 2: Dive Deep into Each Profile

Go through each official profile one by one to assess its health and optimization. This is your chance to spot quick wins and foundational problems.

The Profile Checklist:

• Username/Handle: Is it consistent across platforms? Is it easy to remember and spell?
• Profile Photo: Is it a high-quality logo or headshot? Is it consistent?
• Bio/Description: Does it clearly and concisely explain what the brand does? Does it speak to the target audience? Does it include relevant keywords?
• Link in Bio: Is there a link? Does it work? Does it send users to a relevant page? A simple link to the homepage is okay, but a dedicated link page (like Linktree) or a direct product page is often better.
• Branding: Do the cover photos, Story highlights, and pinned posts all align with the brand’s visual identity? Consistency builds trust.

Document your findings in your spreadsheet. Use a simple rating system (e.g., Good, Fair, Needs Work) for each point to easily identify problem areas later.

Step 3: Analyze the Content Performance

This is where the heart of the audit lies. You'll analyze what the client has been posting to understand what resonates with their audience and what falls flat. Look at the last 3-6 months of content for a solid data set.

What to Look For:

• Content Formats: Tally up the types of content being used. Are they primarily posting static images, single videos, Reels, Stories, carousels, or text updates? Is there a big gap, like a complete lack of short-form video?
• Content Pillars/Themes: Categorize each post into a theme. E.g., educational tips, behind-the-scenes, product promotions, user-generated content, company culture, etc. This will reveal if their content is well-rounded or if they're stuck talking about one thing (usually sales).
• Voice and Tone: Is the caption writing consistent? Does it match the brand's desired persona (e.g., professional, witty, supportive, funny)? Is it engaging or robotic?
• Posting Frequency and Consistency: How often are they posting on each platform? Is it consistent week-to-week, or is it sporadic? Inconsistency is an audience-killer.
• Audience Engagement: Look beyond likes. Who is commenting? What are they saying? Is the client responding to comments and DMs? A lack of response is a huge missed opportunity for community building.

Identify the Winners and Losers

Use each platform's native analytics to identify the top 3-5 best-performing posts and the bottom 3-5 worst-performing posts from the last few months. Define "best" based on the client's goals (e.g., most comments for engagement, most shares for awareness, most clicks for traffic).

For each post - good and bad - ask yourself why:

• For the winners: Was it the format (e.g., a Reel)? The topic? The headline? The call-to-action? Look for patterns.
• For the losers: Was it blurry? Too salesy? Off-brand? Posted at a bad time? These patterns are just as important.

Step 4: Conduct a Competitive Analysis

Your client's social media doesn't exist in a vacuum. Understanding what their competitors are doing provides critical context and highlights opportunities.

Identify 2-3 direct competitors and 1-2 aspirational brands (companies in a similar space that are doing an amazing job on social). Create a new tab in your spreadsheet and analyze each competitor using the same criteria you used on your client:

• Platforms: Where are they active? Where are they seeing the most success?
• Content Strategy: What themes and formats are they leaning into? What's their video strategy?
• Engagement Rate: You won't see their private analytics, but you can manually calculate a rough engagement rate. (Total engagements on a post / Total followers) x 100. This helps you benchmark performance. How does their engagement compare to your client's?
• Strengths & Weaknesses: Where are they knocking it out of the park? Where are their weaknesses? A competitor's weakness might be your client's biggest opportunity. For instance, if no one in their industry is on TikTok yet, it could be a blue ocean for your client.

Step 5: Present Your Findings and Actionable Recommendations

You've gathered all the data. Now, it's time to turn it into a clear, compelling story that inspires action. Don't just hand your client a spreadsheet full of numbers. Build a presentation (Google Slides, Canva, or a PDF report works perfectly) that walks them through your findings.

Your Audit Report Should Include:

1. An Executive Summary: A high-level overview of your findings. Start with what's working well before pointing out the problems.
2. A Refresher on Goals: Briefly restate the business goals you discussed in the kick-off meeting. This frames all of your findings.
3. Platform-by-Platform Analysis: Go through each social media channel, outlining its current state based on your profile review and content analysis. Use screenshots and visuals to illustrate your points.
4. A Channel-by-Channel SWOT Analysis: For each key platform, present its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This is a powerful, well-understood framework to organize your thoughts and make your insights easy to digest.
5. The Competitive Landscape: Briefly summarize what your client's competitors are doing well and where the strategic gaps exist.
6. Actionable Recommendations: This is the most important section. For each weakness and opportunity you identified, provide a clear, specific recommendation.
   • Bad: "Post more on Instagram."
   • Good: "Increase Instagram Reels from 1x per month to 2x per week, focusing on educational topics like X and Y, which our competitor analysis shows is an underserved content gap."
   Your recommendations should cover profile optimizations, a new content strategy (including pillars and formats), a proposed posting schedule, and an engagement strategy.

The final report is your deliverable. It's the proof of your expertise and the foundation for the incredible work you're about to do together.

Final Thoughts

Conducting a thorough social media audit provides the strategic clarity needed to make a real impact on a client's business. By looking at their goals, analyzing their profiles, diagnosing their content, and scanning the competition, you build a data-driven plan that goes far beyond just posting on a schedule.

Once you’ve presented your audit and everyone is aligned on the new strategy, the next challenge is executing it flawlessly. We built Postbase to solve precisely this problem. With a clear visual calendar, you can plan your client's new content strategy for weeks in advance, and our simple scheduling workflow - designed for today’s formats like Reels and Shorts - ensures your content goes live reliably. Combined with a single dashboard to track analytics across all platforms, it helps you prove the value of your new strategy right from day one.