Integrating organic and paid for a powerful LinkedIn social media strategy

A lot of social marketers ask, does our brand really need to be on LinkedIn? In short, yes. By the end of March 2020, LinkedIn reached 690 million users and saw a 26% increase in user sessions quarter-over-quarter.

Your LinkedIn social media strategy will be a bit different than your strategies for other platforms. LinkedIn is unlike its social competitors in that it’s widely regarded as a professional social network, the largest B2B marketing platform in the world and the number one platform for lead generation. The platform presents major opportunities to identify, connect with and advertise to thought leaders, leads, potential candidates and audiences that are entirely new to your brand.

Building a strong organic LinkedIn strategy is still an essential foundation for success on the platform. However, the key to getting the most from LinkedIn is marrying your organic and paid strategies.

LinkedIn outlines an integrated paid-organic strategy in three simple steps:

1. Build a compelling organic presence
2. Boost organic reach and engagement via paid
3. Measure, learn and optimize to drive more impact

In this article we’ll expand on those steps and demonstrate how Sprout can help you optimize your strategies, determine what content to invest in and measure ROI.

Complete your LinkedIn Page

First things first; make sure your LinkedIn Page is complete with accurate, relevant and up-to-date company information. That may seem like a no brainer, but it’s important to be thoughtful and thorough because pages with complete information get 30% more weekly views, which bodes well for your content performance.

The information you provide should include basics like your website URL, logo, banner image, industry, company size and location. Additionally, in your company overview, you should include relevant terms and phrases about your mission and purpose. That way when users add keywords in their search engine or on LinkedIn, your brand will come up in the results.

Build out a mix of engaging organic content

Now, let’s get to the heart and soul of your LinkedIn strategy—your content. Just because LinkedIn is a professional network, that doesn’t mean your brand’s content has to be completely buttoned up and dry. Your content should tell your brand’s story, show personality, provide value for your audience and entice them to engage.

When it comes to building your content calendar, it’s all about providing variety and keeping your goals at the forefront. Increasing brand awareness is the top priority for marketers, and on LinkedIn, persistent brand building yields long-term sales growth. Continually share content about who your brand is, what you stand for, what products and services you offer, what you have that your competitors may not, and why you’re a current or up-and-coming leader in your industry.

Given that LinkedIn is also one of the first places potential candidates look for jobs, you should incorporate employer branding content that highlights your company culture, employees, perks and available roles into your organic strategy. Plus, it’s not just candidates that care about your employer brand, consumers do too. According to Morning Consult, the second most important consideration when deciding to purchase a product or service from a brand is that that brand takes care of their employees and team members.

Thought leadership is powerful content, especially on LinkedIn. According to the platform, 75% of potential B2B buyers say thought leadership helps them determine which vendors to put on their short list. This kind of content also demonstrates the trustworthiness, authority and wisdom of your leaders, which makes a positive impact on both brand awareness and lead generation.

 

Prospective buyers on LinkedIn also typically engage with 7-10 pieces of content before making a purchasing decision, so a well-rounded organic strategy includes a mix of upper, middle and lower funnel content so you can connect with audiences at every stage of the buyer journey.

You should also mix up the types of content assets that you publish and reuse content you already have. When building out or repurposing content for LinkedIn, keep these data points and best practices in mind:

• Companies that post weekly see a 2x lift in engagement with their content.
• LinkedIn posts that include images typically result in 2x higher comment rate.
• Videos get 5x more engagement on LinkedIn than other platforms and live streams get 24x more comments than standard native videos.
• Updates including links can have up to a 45% higher follower engagement than updates without links. When including links, add URL tracking codes to measure post-click actions like site visits or conversions, which you can then measure via Google Analytics.

These considerations will help elevate your content, but determining what content works best for your goals and audience comes down to reporting and analytics.

 Let organic success influence your paid strategy

Reporting on your organic LinkedIn content performance is the moment where your paid and organic strategy can begin to work in tandem. You should invest in the best content—that is, what resonates with your audience and supports your goals. To find out what that content is, use a social media analytics platform like Sprout Social. With Sprout’s powerful analytics, you choose the metrics and Sprout pulls the Top Posts into your LinkedIn Pages report.

If brand awareness is top priority, look at KPIs like impressions, likes, video views, photo and video clicks. For consideration stage, middle of the funnel content, your top performers might be those with the most comments, shares, engagement rate, link clicks or click-through rates. If you added UTM tags to your links as recommended, use Google Analytics to track which links are driving conversions to your website and driving leads.

In the Post Performance Report, you can also find which types of content fall flat. It’s equally important to know what your audience doesn’t react to, so even metrics that are perceived as “underperforming” are very telling.

If you’ve tagged your content up-front while scheduling, or do so retroactively, you can use the Sprout Tag Report to measure the effectiveness of your content themes, the types of creative assets you’ve used, what stage in the funnel the post aligns with and so much more. Let’s say you want to know if your audience clicks a post more often if the imagery is people-focused versus product-focused. Or perhaps you want to know if a video employee testimonial drives more engagement than a blog post. These are all variables you can test and track with the tag report.

Once you do understand what organic content captures your audience and drives success, you can determine what should get a boost, what creative elements you should continue to test and what types of ads you should invest in.

Invest in the best: Boost and elevate

Boosting your existing content and creating Sponsored Content In LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager extends your organic reach and delivers content right to your target audience.

Boosting is a good way to get started with your paid LinkedIn strategy and is cost-efficient. Rather than starting from scratch, if you have an organic post that’s working really well, you can put just $50 or so behind it and see how reaching a wider audience impacts your goals. The process of boosting your content is simple as well. Once it’s posted on LinkedIn, just click “Sponsor now” above the post in your Page feed.

Even when you have a larger budget, boosting can give early insight into performance and help you determine what content you should invest more in or pull back on.

If you’re ready to start a new LinkedIn advertising campaign, you’ll use the native Campaign Manager and walk through these four easy steps:

1. Choose your objective and goals to customize your campaign. Just as it was with your organic content, those objectives would be awareness, consideration or conversions, with specific goals like engagement, video views, website conversions and more. It’s up to you.
2. Then, select your targeting criteria from over 20 different audience attribute categories including company size, company name, skills, job title, job seniority and more. Targeting is what’s really going to drive success. Sprout pro tip: You can choose the same targeting options for organic posts in Compose free of cost.
3. Pick your ad format. You can use Sponsored Content, Message Ads, Dynamic Ads, Text Ads, or a mix of all four.
4. Finally, set your bid, budget and schedule. If you’re unsure of how much money to bid and budget, ask a paid strategist or digital marketer on your team for suggestions, if you have one. LinkedIn also has a ton of resources on how to maximize your budget.

It’s best practice to refresh LinkedIn ads once a month by changing copy and/or image. Determine what to mix up by turning to your paid reports data. LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager provides a full breakdown of your campaign performance so you can see cost per impression (CPM), cost per lead (CPL), and more. The lower the cost, the better.

If you’ve connected your LinkedIn Ad account, Sprout also generates a LinkedIn Paid Performance Report, with a full breakdown of your metrics and data visualization, making analysis simple. Just as you did while reporting on your organic content, you can determine what content is worth the investment.

Try, try again

Organic and paid strategies are both about trial and error, learning what works and what doesn’t—and improving with each new approach by using your performance data. Rather than throwing money at content based on a gut feeling, continue to use your organic content as your testing ground. Use your data to validate assumptions, optimize your campaigns and create cost-efficient content.

LinkedIn is an influential platform for growing your brand, no matter what industry you work in. And when you leverage the power of an integrated organic and paid LinkedIn strategy, there’s really nowhere to go but up.

Want to dig deeper and learn more about turning B2B social data into a revenue driver? Download our guide.

This post Integrating organic and paid for a powerful LinkedIn social media strategy originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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4 Benefits of Twitter for business

Twitter is one of the top platforms to keep up with the latest trends and conversations. It helps you discover which TV shows people are watching, which social media challenges they’re trying and more.

You may already be using Twitter on a daily basis to follow your favorite brands and take part in trending conversations. But what about using Twitter for your business?

Perhaps you understand the benefits of Twitter but not sure how exactly to use it for your business. In this article, we’ll give you a detailed breakdown of why Twitter is important for business and how you can make the most of it.

1. Gain valuable customer insights

Twitter sees 6,000 Tweets every second. This puts into perspective how actively people are using it as a conversation platform. And for businesses, these conversations can prove to be a valuable source of customer insights. Using Twitter can help you research trends and topics that your audience cares about so you know how to reach them more effectively.

In fact, according to Joe Rice, who leads Twitter’s EMEA Data & Enterprise Solutions, “Twitter is the world’s largest focus group because at its core, Twitter is a consumer insights engine. What do people think about a certain topic or trend?  What are their needs, moods and mindsets?  It’s all there on Twitter and these insights can help brands do all sorts of things from launching new products or services to improving the ones they already have. It’s also a great place to engage with consumers in an authentic way, humanizing your brand.”

The Twitter Explore page gives you an updated list of topics and hashtags trending in your region and relevant to your interests. So you can use this section to discover the Twitter hashtags and conversations that are important to your audience.

2. Build brand personality and awareness

How you style your Tweets and engage with your audience on Twitter is highly effective for establishing your brand personality and growing awareness.

One of the top benefits of Twitter for business is that it lets you share information quickly and start conversations with your target audience. In turn, your audience would find your Tweets and content valuable and ideally, even share with their followers.

Make sure you use a tone that aligns with your brand voice and personality. The types of conversations and topics you’re interested in and the tone in your Tweets will help you attract an audience whose views align with yours. If you’re starting out or need a refreshed strategy, Twitter recently launched an Organic Tweets starter kit worksheet to help brands establish their tone of voice.

For example, Ben & Jerry’s may sell ice cream but it regularly talks about political and social issues through Twitter. It uses the platform to promote social causes that are important to the brand, so it’s been able to make a huge impact on people who care about the same causes. We even did a Social Spotlight on Ben & Jerry’s for this very reason.

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote. Sweet, right? Well, not so much for women of color. Take the quiz to test your knowledge of women's suffrage: https://t.co/6a35BOQOTW pic.twitter.com/x9TQeXuaKD

— Ben & Jerry's (@benandjerrys) August 18, 2020

Additionally, engaging with your audience’s replies and mentions  also improves your chances of showing up in non-followers’ feeds. These actions help you boost visibility and brand awareness, thus proving to be a major benefit of Twitter. The most successful brands on Twitter have both paid and organic strategies. To illustrate, a Followers campaign is more likely to be successful if your profile has a healthy stream of engaging organic content. Conversely, promoting a Tweet can give it organic momentum.

The Sprout #BrandsGetReal survey even found that the top three behaviors that help brands connect with consumers are:

1. Liking or responding to customers
2. Showcasing brand personality
3. Supporting a cause that consumers personally support

3. Deliver customer support and gather feedback

According to Rice, “The most advanced brands see Twitter as a vital marketing, customer care and market research medium that can provide valuable insights on every aspect of their business.”

And rightly so. The platform makes it easy for customers to reach out to brands and provide their feedback or ask for help. Brands can then use this as an opportunity to not only collect vital feedback to improve their products but also to deliver the support their customers need.

Companies such as Netflix have even set up a dedicated Twitter account to provide support. The company offers support through this page in multiple languages and in locations across the world.

Hey thanks for reporting this to us and sorry for the delayed response. Our members are reporting the issue is fixed for them. Can you check if your Netflix is working again as well? *CS

— Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) August 7, 2020

Netflix also uses the same account to collect feedback on how to improve the service and user experience, which they then pass on to their research team.

Great! We have received it and passed along your info to our research team.

— Netflix CS (@Netflixhelps) August 23, 2020

4. Cultivate a brand community

With the ease of conversation between brands and consumers, one of the major benefits of using Twitter is for building and cultivating your brand community. Brands can use the platform to start and join in on relevant conversations, engage with their community and build a loyal following.

In fact, our #BrandsGetReal survey found that 55% of consumers want brands to help them connect with likeminded people through social media. And 36% expect brands to build communities that consumers can belong to.

So it’s no surprise that one of the top benefits of Twitter for business is to cultivate a brand community and bring people together around a common interest or cause.

Taco Bell has done an exceptional job of nurturing its brand community through Twitter. The brand regularly shares its customers’ and super-fans’ Tweets to show appreciation while getting others on board.

Two Crunchy Tacos, a Baja Blast and a makeup tutorial. https://t.co/uXewresz3v

— Taco Bell (@tacobell) August 6, 2020

Unlocking these Twitter benefits

Hopefully now you have a clearer idea of how these benefits of Twitter can add value to your marketing mix. If you’re not sure where to start with using Twitter for your business, check out our guide on what to Tweet for some ideas.

This post 4 Benefits of Twitter for business originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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9 Ways to Improve Your Marketing on LinkedIn

Wondering how to get more out of LinkedIn? Are you using LinkedIn effectively? In this article, you’ll discover nine LinkedIn ideas to improve your networking and marketing. #1: Maintain Top-of-Mind Awareness With 1st-Level LinkedIn Connections Every update you see in the LinkedIn feed is an opportunity to understand what the people and businesses you follow […]

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How to use Snapchat for business in 2020

When Snapchat emerged in 2012, it excited users by letting them tell stories, use fun filters and create off-the-cuff content. Since then, other apps like Instagram, Facebook, and now TikTok, have made their own versions of this style of storytelling. Even though Snapchat pioneered this style of content, it seems like fewer people are talking about the platform these days.

So, where does Snapchat stand as a social media platform and marketing tool in 2020?

By the end of Q1 2020, Snapchat still has 229 million daily active users around the world. Although it may seem like fewer people use Snapchat for business, it has seen a 20.5% increase in usage since 2019. And its numbers have since been increasing.

Compared to Twitter and Facebook, Snapchat is the most highly trafficked social platform among teenagers and young adults. And Snapchat users post over 210 million snaps on the platform every single day.

Who can still benefit from Snapchat marketing?

If your brand caters to Gen Z or younger millennials, then Snapchat can have a considerable impact on your business. These generations have billions of dollars of direct spending power as well as influence over household spending.

Snapchat also tends to work best with direct to consumer brands who can use the app to drive traffic to an ecommerce website or app. Since Snapchat lets businesses create short, highly engaging content, it makes users heavily invested in those stories. Because of their high engagement rates, Snapchatters are 60% more likely to make impulse purchases based on products they see on the app.

Ways to use Snapchat for business in 2020

So as a digital marketer, how can you use Snapchat in ways that make sense and cater to the demographics that are active on the platform? Here are a few ways brands can continue to incorporate Snapchat into their marketing strategies.

Cross-promote content from other platforms

To use Snapchat successfully, then you need to have followers on the platform.

If you have a large following on another platform, let those followers know about your Snapchat to encourage them to check out your content there. It helps to have a specific angle or focus on your Snapchat content or share things you don’t share on other platforms.

You can give your followers on other platforms a sneak peek of original content you’re posting on Snapchat. This will create excitement and encourage people to follow you on that platform as well.

Keep up with the latest social media trends to make sure that you’re always creating content that is fresh and engaging. This is especially important when targeting generations known for being in tune with what’s trending.

Create interactive filters for your brand

One of the things that makes Snapchat so popular are the filters—or Lenses, as they’re referred to—and geotags on the app. Businesses have an opportunity to get their message in front of Snapchat users by creating interactive filters that Snapchatters want to use.

The average Snapchat user interacts with a Snapchat Lens for at least 20 seconds and is likely to share images or videos of themselves using the filter. This essentially creates user-generated content that is promoting your brand to their audience.

With geofilters, you can create location-specific filters for when users are bear your business or location. This works exceptionally well for stores, restaurants or any business that has a brick and mortar storefront. When someone uses a geofilter or Lens on Snapchat, you’re getting instant exposure, free advertising and social proof to their followers.

Creating a branded geofilter can cost between $5 and $5,000 depending on how widely you want to promote the filter. A national campaign, with a high budget, can reach up to 60% of Snapchat users in one day.

Dunkin Donuts took advantage of National Donut Day by creating a goofy and fun Snapchat Filter that turns your head into a giant pink, glazed donut. In addition to the lens, they made custom geo-filters that were unlocked when someone visited their store.

You donut want to miss our #NationalDonutDay lens on Snapchat today 6/2! 👻: dunkindonuts pic.twitter.com/wEEJjRJ4xJ

— Dunkin’ (@dunkindonuts) June 2, 2017

This campaign single-handedly gained them 10x more followers on their Snapchat.

Coordinate brand takeovers on your account

If you’re working with influencers, you can incorporate a Snapchat takeover into your content agreement. Letting influencers take over your Snapchat account for a day will encourage their audience to follow along on your account. The influencer will also likely promote that takeover on their account, helping drive traffic to your page.

When doing a Snapchat takeover, try to make it exclusive to the platform. It might seem like a good idea to repost stories from an Instagram takeover to Snapchat, but you want to encourage people to follow you on Snapchat as well as Instagram to get the full impact of the platform. Create takeovers that are specific to Snapchat and work with influencers who are already active on the app.

Set specific goals for the platform that contribute to your overall marketing goals

Setting specific social media marketing goals can help you understand how Snapchat can help you meet those goals.

If your goal is to increase traffic, then Snapchat can help drive users to your website. The platform recently added the ability to add links to your Snaps, which works very well when promoting products or offers on your website.

Every Snapchat business account has access to their account analytics through the platform’s native analytics tool, Snapchat Insights.

Image via Snapchat

These metrics include the demographics of your stories’ views, including their age, gender, location and general interests. You’ll also see who watched your Snapchat story until the end and the number of people who saw your story.

Invest in paid advertising

If you have an advertising budget and a large audience on Snapchat, then Snapchat ads can be a lucrative part of your social media marketing strategy.

Here are the main types of ads you can use in Snapchat.

Collection ads

Collection ads use tappable tiles to link to products that users can shop directly from the app. These shoppable ads are ideal for ecommerce businesses. When testing this type of ad against standard Snap ads, eBay saw five times more engagement when using Collection ads on the same products.

Image via Snapchat

Filters and Lenses

We already mentioned how filters and lenses could increase engagement and brand awareness on the app. These Snapchat features also fall within its advertising platform. In addition to the fee for creating a filter or lens, you can also pay for sponsored filters or lenses that Snapchat will distribute to your target audience. The higher your distribution budget, the more people you’ll reach with your filters or lenses.

Story ads

Story ads appear in Snapchat’s Discover section and as branded advertisements. With story ads, you can create 3 to 20 images or video ads. These are usually straightforward, full-screen ads that contain a call to action. Most of these ads contain an attachment allowing users to swipe up and go to another website.

Hopper worked with Snapchat to create static story ads that targeted geographically specific users with flight deals in their area. The ads were straightforward and had a clear call to action, which was to install the app.

With these ads, Hopper found that Snapchat users were 37% more likely to download the app and watch a specific flight than their other acquisition channels. Using Snapchat ads, they were also able to reduce their cost per install by 50%.

Commercials

These ads are non-skippable for at least 6 seconds and appear within Snapchat’s curated content. Commercial ads are great for building brand awareness on the app and reaching new audiences.

If you have a large enough budget, and your target audience fits into Snapchat’s target demographic, it’s worth experimenting with running commercial ads on the platform.

Final Thoughts

Even though it attracts a particular audience, there are still ways that using Snapchat for business can help grow your brand. When you use Snapchat as an intentional and strategic marketing channel, it can help you drive traffic and increase sales among millennials and Gen Z more effectively than other platforms.

To learn more about prioritizing the right social media platforms, check out our article on how to choose which social media channels are right for your brand.

This post How to use Snapchat for business in 2020 originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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How to Analyze Facebook Live Video: A Marketing Tutorial

Wondering if your Facebook Live videos are working? Need a deeper understanding of your live video metrics? In this article, you’ll find a deep dive into Facebook Live video Insights in the Creator Studio dashboard. Discover which metrics actually help you improve your Facebook lives and find out why most marketers get their data and […]

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The lean social team: How Sprout powers efficiency for social marketers and proves their ROI

We’ve all heard the saying, many hands make light work. And yet social media managers, who could definitely use more hands to juggle their many responsibilities, are often a team of one.

Essentially, social media managers flying solo must be human Swiss Army knives to successfully plan, create, schedule and report on social content. And on top of that, they have to monitor and engage with their community and turn data into a story to prove the ROI of their work.

If your heart rate just increased, we feel you. It’s a lot to take on, but we’re here to help.

Throughout the year, we’ve heard from our social communities and several Sprout customers who have felt the weight of being a team of one. In the Social Marketers Exchange on Facebook, a member started a poll to learn more about the structure of other members’ social media team and who manages their inbox. Turns out that 64% of the respondents do it all by themselves.

And if you’re looking for even more solo social marketer solidarity, look no further than this Twitter thread.

raise your hand if you are or have ever been a social media team of one.

🙋🏾‍♀️ pic.twitter.com/BXI9v9Eqc1

— jayde i. powell (@jaydeipowell) June 24, 2020

If you’re part of a lean social team, then organization, automation and efficiency are key! Sprout Social can help boost your productivity, maximize your marketing impact and show real ROI to your bosses. Read on to learn more about Sprout features, tips and tricks that will make it work feel a little easier.

Get creative when planning content

Content planning requires your attention and intention. There are a lot of social media managers out there that will post just to post, but on social, quality usually trumps quantity. Save yourself time and energy by planning value-rich content tailored for your audience and aligned with business objectives. Then, think about multiple ways to position and reuse that one piece of content, before spinning your wheels on an entirely new idea.

Making the most out of every resource is key. One way to extend the life of video content, for example, is to cut down longer clips into teasers or short, impactful snippets that can stand on their own. And when sharing blog content, write a variety of options for post copy that each tell a different part of the story, so it feels fresh and enticing each time you share.

According to the 2020 Sprout Social Index™, 50% of marketers feel they need more content creation skills to achieve their goals. For more advice, read “5 tips to make the most of remote content production.”

Not every social post has to be content that you created. Curated third-party content creates a more nuanced and balanced feed and can fill any publishing gaps in your calendar. The Find Content tool, available in all Sprout plans, aggregates timely, engaging and relevant content that’s been shared across social platforms. Filter by categories, themes and industries to instantly surface content that your audience will value. Once you find what you’re looking for, just hit the “Send to Compose” button to add it to your Sprout Queue or Calendar.

Compose yourself: Content scheduling made easy

Once you’ve got a tentative content plan, map it out, queue it up and bring it to life in Sprout’s publishing suite.

Scheduling content can be relatively time consuming, but the Sprout content calendar can streamline the process. Here are few Sprout hacks right in the Compose window that speed up scheduling:

• There are several different scheduling options. When you’re posting the same content across channels, click “Schedule + Duplicate” and voila! A replica of the post will pop up which you can edit as necessary and tweak for different platforms. Or if you’re just not ready to commit, save it as a draft in your calendar and come back to it later.

Some personal news: the schedule+duplicate feature in @SproutSocial has actually changed my life. #smm

— stephanie rojas (she/her) (@_stefro) September 16, 2020

• The Sprout Asset Library—available on Sprout’s Advanced plans—can be a major, well…asset. Essentially, it’s a bank of important, reusable content and brand assets. You can save everything from post templates, visual assets, groupings of brand hashtags, videos and more. Then, access them all in the Compose window.
• Tagging your outgoing content will help you organize your posts and measure ROI down the road. Customize your tags so that they’re aligned with campaign goals, content themes, creative asset types, your target audience and more. Then, in Compose, you can access a drop-down list of all your tags and add them directly to your posts.
• Optimal Send Times powered by ViralPost®—available with Sprout’s Professional and Advanced plans—automatically generates the best times for you to post based on your audience’s activity and engagement patterns. Neat, huh?

Organizing and scheduling content ahead of time will free you up to create more timely content, engage with your audience and put out any fires, if necessary. Prep is also paramount if you want to make the most of your social data later.

Mission possible: Get to inbox zero

Monitoring the inbox and community management is a daily duty for solo social media managers.  These days, social media is one of the first places people will turn for customer service. Given that 49% of consumers will unfollow a brand on social if they receive subpar service, the stakes are relatively high. If the responsibility of providing customer service on social is yours alone, having a tool like Sprout’s Smart Inbox can save you time and stress.

In Sprout’s Smart Inbox, you can check messages off like a to-do list and file them away so they don’t clutter your view. If messages require more attention or you’re not sure what the right response is, you can assign it to yourself as a task, which puts a digital pin in it so you can mull it over or consult leadership about it.

You have a lot more to do than spend all day keeping one eye on your inbox, though. Enter your new best friend, Sprout’s Inbox automations.

Even though social media is always on, you don’t have to be. Sprout Bots can be your inbox coverage after quitting time, on weekends and during your busiest workdays. One of our customers let the Sprout Marketers Exchange know how valuable it’s been for them. “We ended up adding it because we were getting a lot of negative reviews on Yelp, Google, Facebook, etc. and there just wasn’t 24/7 staffing available to give one-on-one support. It has definitely helped alleviate a bunch of frustrated reviewers.”

In the Bot Builder, you can customize a tree of conversation flows. Then, when users go to DM your brand the Bot will prompt them and manage the conversation until it’s time to hand it off to you. Bots can focus on FAQ and basic customer service inquiries while you focus on the more difficult questions and comments that require a personalized response. It’s a win-win for you and your customers.

River Island, a major international fashion retailer, has seen the results first-hand. The brand activated Sprout Bots in mid-April of 2020, and consequently, their chatbots provided nearly 10,000 auto-responses on the brand’s behalf by the end of August.

When you’re the only one monitoring your brand’s social profiles, it can be a struggle to truly sign off at the end of the day. But with Sprout you can rest assured that important messages won’t slip through the cracks. If a sudden influx of incoming messages hit your inbox, they will trigger Message Spike Alerts, which send an email or mobile push notification. Best case scenario, your raving fans are just stoked about your latest product release. But in the event that those messages are spurred on by a customer service issue or call-out culture knocking at your brand’s front door, you won’t be caught off-guard and can react quickly.

And finally, Inbox Rules provide additional support in catching the most important messages. Here are a few examples of some rules you should consider setting up:

• Keyword-based rules: Get alerted when someone says a specific word or phrase. This can be really helpful in remaining on top of crisis management and customer service. For instance, if consumers have issues with online orders or are looking for a refund, set up rules with those keywords so you can provide efficient customer care.
• VIP list rules: Add users to Sprout VIP lists so you never miss a message when they reach out. Or, if you’re looking to identify potential brand ambassadors or influencers, you can set up a rule to get alerted when a user with a high follower count messages you.
• Spam-blocking rules: Not every user on your VIP lists has to be a high priority. Avoid seeing spam content by adding repeat spammers to a VIP list and setting a rule to auto-complete messages from those users.

There is value in everything you do. Social data can prove it

 Demonstrating and proving the value of social media marketing efforts is one of the top challenges for marketers, and yet, only 23% use social data to measure ROI. It’s time to embrace your inner data analyst.

Data analysis and reporting are crucial skills for social media managers. For teams of one looking to be more efficient with reporting, tag your content, add UTM parameters to your links and make the most of your social analytics tool. These steps will streamline the reporting process and help you more accurately represent the business impact of your work.

Sprout’s Tag Report is a great way to track, test and validate campaign performance, the content themes and topics that resonate with your audience, which creative assets are engaged with most frequently and so much more. With those insights, you can be more intentional about what content you spend your time creating and you can build a stronger social strategy.

Naturally, when people think ROI, they follow the money. However, with organic social, the return is more than just financial. As a social media manager, you probably know your brand’s audience better than anyone else. That is a HUGE asset.

Follower count might often be called a vanity metric, but growing your social following directly supports your business’ revenue and overall marketing goals. Just look at the actions consumers take when they follow a brand on social media.

When you have a full understanding of top business goals and Sprout’s robust analytics suite, you’ll be more equipped to efficiently report on the most important social media KPIs for each stage of the funnel. Plus, Sprout reports generate presentation-ready, exportable data visualizations that will help you paint a picture of your successes for leadership.

Need a little help identifying those KPIs? We’ve got you covered. Check out our free Social Media Metrics Map.

Your time is money, so start saving it

When it seems like you have a million things to accomplish in a day, it can be hard to stay organized. Bouncing back and forth from one task to another can be a real time-suck.

Whether you’re on a small social team or it’s just you, your time is money. Sprout’s content calendar, automation tools and reporting options help give you time back, so you can do more in your day—and maybe even log off at a reasonable hour and sleep better at night.

A social team of one’s work can disrupt their real social life if they don’t have the right tools. Stay organized, improve efficiency and maximize your impact while maintaining a work-life balance. Start your free trial today!

This post The lean social team: How Sprout powers efficiency for social marketers and proves their ROI originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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How to Grow Your Email List With Facebook Ads

Want more email subscribers? Have you considered paying Facebook to help grow your list? In this article, you’ll discover how to improve the chances that you acquire and keep email subscribers. Why Combine Facebook Ads With an Email Nurture Sequence? No matter what type of online business you run, your email list is the most […]

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How to Build Your Brand on YouTube

Want to do more with YouTube? Wondering how to compete with established YouTube channels? To explore how to build a brand on YouTube, I interview Salma Jafri on the Social Media Marketing Podcast. Salma is a video strategist and YouTube coach who specializes in helping other coaches, solopreneurs, and consultants develop their brand with video […]

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11 Tips for LinkedIn recruiting to stand out from the crowd

At 706+ million users in 200+ countries, LinkedIn is one of the most used social media platforms for making connections. While it used to be primarily used for recruitment, it’s also now used for sharing content and maintaining professional relationships. It’s also one of the few places where you can repeatedly post about your job search or career wins without annoying your followers.

Despite the shift in usage, it’s still a major network for finding new jobs and job candidates. Recruiters, both fresh and seasoned, can always use a refresh on their LinkedIn recruiting strategy. Here are a few tips for you to up your recruitment game.

1. Update your LinkedIn company profile

How do you want your company to look to potential new hires? While it varies from industry to industry, most would agree that you want to present a professional page that clearly communicates your company’s values, interests and information.

It never hurts to check your company page every now and then to make sure it’s still communicating what you want. If things have changed or there are major updates at the company, then it’s time to refresh your LinkedIn Page. Having a fully filled out profile helps with recruitment efforts, especially if you’re using the network to make new connections.

2. Update your personal profile

Next up, check your current profile to make sure everything is up-to-date, including your current job title. In a brief glance, will a candidate be able to see that you’re a recruiter? When you’re creating your job history, don’t stop with your current one. Add in a few others and also complete the other profile sections. You don’t want to appear as if you were a scam recruiter.

Another overlooked part of a personal profile is your photo. This is not Facebook or Instagram. You want to have either a professional portrait done or have one that clearly shows your face, even when it’s a small avatar icon. Having an updated profile will only enhance your lead generation strategy.

3. Up your LinkedIn marketing game

The company page should not be silent. Beef up your LinkedIn marketing by posting relevant company and industry updates. As a company, you want to establish yourself as an expert in your field so recruits and prospective employees will feel like they’re going into meaningful work.

In addition to frequently posting and engaging, you’ll want to take a look at the Life section of the company profile. This is accessible as a paid feature called LinkedIn Career Pages. This is where you can put more information about working at the company. Everything from department highlights to employee testimonials can live here. In Pinterest’s case, each department has its own tab that highlights its strengths and quickly introduces you to what life is like there.

Marketing and recruitment go hand in hand. Especially in today’s climate where consumers care about the company they purchase from, you want to create a company image that appeals to your ideal candidate. Posting will assist with that. Marketing on LinkedIn isn’t limited to Company Page posts, though. It also includes how you use your personal page.

4. Join relevant groups

If LinkedIn is a major recruitment tool for you, then you need to spend more time on it. That means joining groups that are relevant to you and your job, such as industry-specific groups, alumni groups, local or regional business groups and more. All of these groups are access points for you to post jobs. However, don’t be the person who only posts about job openings. It’s still a social network and you’ll need to be interactive within the groups.

This is also a good time to check in on your industry. Not every industry is on LinkedIn. Some, like information technology and financial services, have a high presence and will be easier to establish connections. If your industry isn’t very active on the network, then you will need to work a little harder to find connections. On the flip side, it’s easier to be a big fish in a small pond than the other way around.

5. Make and maintain important connections

LinkedIn is big on connections. The more connections you have, the better your chances of finding a suitable candidate. LinkedIn makes it easy to find alumni in your field or past and current employees, especially when personal profiles are populated with past companies, skills, schools, and associations.

This being said, you don’t want to be the person who requests to connect with everyone in their field. With each connection, personalize it with how you’ve met or why you want to connect. Take half a minute to look at the profile to make sure your message matches up with the person. It gives your company a bad look if you  auto-fill your introductions and it doesn’t make sense.

LinkedIn isn’t only for making connections, it’s also about maintaining them. While a new connection is useful, a nurtured one is even better. Share useful posts in your field of expertise and engage with individual and company posts.

6. Create Job Posts or Job Slots

Creating a job post is free and you have the option to boost it with an advertising budget. This is best for small businesses or those who hire less frequently.

For companies that hire more often, LinkedIn has a paid program called Recruiter where you can post Job Slots that provide you with even more recruitment features. These include helpful items like receiving recommended candidates based on your post criteria, analytics and a dedicated messaging platform.

Within the job post itself, you need to cover the basics of title, description, how to apply and the best way to contact for additional information. But beyond that, you need to stand out. There are over 20 million open jobs on the network right now. You want to attract the most relevant candidates. An easy-to-peruse job and company description will be more digestible to those who browse through dozens of job postings a day.

When sharing job posts onto individual and company networks, treat it like another piece of content. You don’t want to only post the link, you want to add your commentary, quotes or useful information from it.

7. Optimize the keywords

Something that isn’t always considered with job postings is the importance of using the right words. Too much industry jargon limits your possibilities. Even if the job title will be unique like “culture curator,” put the more commonly searched for title in the job posting, whether it’s “music curator,” “horticulture curation” or whichever terms best fit your industry. You can always mention “culture curator” further down in the job description.

If you’re stuck on which job title to settle on, search through the jobs directory to see which ones have the most results.

In addition to the right job title, focus on the skills needed for the position. If you use keywords that are often used in personal profiles, your job posts will show up for the best matched candidates.

8. Encourage employee advocacy

After you’ve made your connections with past and current employees, it’s time to encourage activity on their profiles. Recruiters shouldn’t be the only ones posting about the company or job openings on a personal profile. The more employees share about their achievements and life at the company, the more brand awareness is generated.

To make it easy for employees to share news, use an internal bulletin or newsletter with easy-to-share tidbits. This can range from big company achievements to individual employee spotlights. Include links, graphics, sample copy and encourage employees to share with their networks. The power of personal stories through employee advocacy shouldn’t be overlooked when attracting prospective candidates.

9. Use InMail with care

If you’ve been on the network long enough, you’ve likely received a request for connection or InMail message from someone you’ve never met and only tangentially related to your industry. Don’t be that person.

Messaging or using InMail should be used with care for candidates that you really want to recruit. Add in some sentences that are personalized to their profile, skills and what they’re looking for so you can stand out in their inbox.

10. Consider paid advertising

If you want to get in front of a lot of peoples’ eyes, you’ll need to consider paid advertisement. There are a variety of LinkedIn ads that could be useful to recruitment efforts. You can add advertising to an existing job post, pay for InMail, create a Lead Gen Forms and create a conversion goal for job applicants, just to name a few.

If you do decide on paid advertising, make sure you’ve already taken a look at our other tips. A job post ad won’t be as effective with a half-filled company page or poorly created job post.

In addition to selecting the correct objective, you’ll also need to set up the right ad audience. Much like other social networks, LinkedIn provides you with target audience options, helping you advertise jobs to the most relevant people.

11. Research LinkedIn Talent Solutions

While many of the above tips are free to execute, this one is not. LinkedIn has a slew of options for recruiters that are willing to pay for more features. Called Talent Solutions, there are options for you in every step of the recruiting process. If you manage a high number of openings or candidates, this may be the best solution for you.

LinkedIn Recruiter is a tool that surfaces the best candidates for you, helps you manage them and provides you with relevant analytics to improve your efforts.

Conclusion

LinkedIn provides a number of useful tools, both free and paid, for recruiters to connect with the best candidates. A mix of marketing, profile updates and optimization and continual engagement on the network will help enhance any company’s recruiting efforts. Because new features are constantly being released, follow along LinkedIn’s own page on recruiting and learn more about how to incorporate employee advocacy into your LinkedIn recruiting strategy.

This post 11 Tips for LinkedIn recruiting to stand out from the crowd originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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10 Ways to repurpose your livestream and get more from your content

Going live on social media requires a lot of prep work and for many people can be incredibly nerve wracking and stressful. This means you want to get way more out of your livestream than a single 15- or 30-minute session.

This is why it’s a great idea to repurpose your livestream and use it to create tons of other types of online content that can help you meet your marketing goals throughout a campaign or quarter.

Let’s dive into how you can repurpose your next livestream and get more from your content.

1. Post your livestream to other platforms

If you hosted a livestream on Facebook Live, save the video to your phone or computer–depending on the device you used for your livestream–and then upload it to promote it across other platforms.

You can easily upload that video to your YouTube channel, share with your followers on Twitter, etc.

This can help you to reach an even larger audience with your content because you might have followers on other platforms that aren’t on Facebook.

Plus all you have to do to increase the reach of this content is download the already made video and upload it to a different platform. This won’t take up time and resources with a lot of additional editing or post-production.

2. Trim clips to share on Instagram

Use video editing software or an online trimming tool to help you shave down important tidbits from your original livestream to share on Instagram Stories or add to your profile highlights.

Be sure to find the best 10-15 second quotable video clips that you can share with your Instagram audience and add text captions and other decorative elements using the features available in the Instagram Stories creator.

Text captions are perfect for explaining your main point for viewers who are watching your stories without sound and other decorative elements like stickers, GIFs or even interactive options like polls can be fun for your audience and tie into your existing visual branding.

Here’s a great example of what this could look like with just a couple of elements added in to make your video clip more engaging.

3. Grab screenshots to share teasers on social media

Did you showcase an upcoming product or service launch? Share something exciting for your customers? Use that to your advantage to make anyone who might have missed the broadcast feel a bit of FOMO.

Take screenshots of these enticing sections of your livestream and share them on social media to tease your past live video. You can then share the link to watch the full video, generating even more views and customer engagement long after you’ve finished up broadcasting.

4. Embed your livestream in a blog post

If you went live on Facebook or YouTube, you’re able to grab an embed code for that post and share it on your blog or website. If you were livestreaming an educational topic, this can be a great way to use that content to reach a larger audience.

Create a blog post surrounding the same topic you used in your livestream by sharing more information, linking to related blog posts and resources or even simply transcribing your live video.

This allows your blog readers to decide whether they’d prefer to read the content or watch your video to consume your information. Providing videos for further engagement in your blog content is always a good way to vary your content mix, and this gives you the perfect opportunity to repurpose your livestream.

5. Create branded quote graphics with snippets from your livestream

Branded quote graphics can be a great visual strategy for your Instagram or Pinterest content, and what better way to gather quotes than from your direct quotes in live videos?

Use a graphic design tool to incorporate your brand colors and fonts into a visually appealing quote graphic that you can share on social media and engage your audience with your tips and advice even further.

Take a look at an example of what this could look like for your brand.

You can easily use Sprout Social’s publishing features to help spread out your quote graphics strategically and create a pattern in your Instagram grid.

6. Tweet quotes from your livestream

Twitter is one of the only platforms where you don’t necessarily need to add a photo, link or video to your content in order to generate engagement.

You’ll see Sprout Social’s Twitter using this strategy often, like you see here in this tweet.

This means you can easily tweet quotes from your livestream either with or without quote graphics and still reach a wide enough audience to share your knowledge.

Use Twitter hashtags like #quote or #qotd to reach even more potential followers and customers.

7. Turn your livestream into a podcast episode

If your brand hosts a podcast, you can easily get a new episode simply by repurposing the audio from your livestream. Add in your podcast intro, make a few tweaks to edit out any unnecessary sections – like Q&A from your live video that might not make sense to your podcast listeners – and upload to your podcast host.

Then you can do all of your regular promotion and marketing for the new episode, while reducing the work on your part for the podcast creation.

8. Share your livestream in an email

Use your livestream content in your next email newsletter. Whether you send weekly or monthly newsletters, this is the perfect way to further promote your live video and have a quick and easy topic to center your email content around.

If you had a lead generation component to your livestream, such as collecting contact info for reminders before the event, this is a great way to re-engage with the livestream recording and even additional related content.

If you’ve uploaded your live video to YouTube, you can embed it in your email, or you can take a screenshot or create a cover graphic and let your audience click to view your video.

Be sure to make your email copy as enticing as possible to maximize clicks to your video.

9. Turn clips into GIFs

Have some fun with your content and create some reaction GIFs based off of funny moments from your livestream. You can then use these throughout your social media content strategy to engage your audience and reinforce your brand voice.

There are several online tools that can help you to create your own GIFs and store them in your social content arsenal, such as Sprout’s Asset Library, for sharing when they’re relevant.

Find some of your best moments throughout, whether it’s the perfect reaction or it’s a quick tidbit of infinite knowledge that you can regularly share online.

Be sure that your GIFs have some form of captions or text since these types of moving image files have no sound. This is also a great way to highlight any notable quotes from the event.

10. Create a mash-up of the best clips

Another great way to repurpose your livestream is to drop it into a video editing software and pull out all of your best clips. This can make your video even more digestible and shareable since you’re able to go back and take out all of the fluff and conversational aspects that go on during a live stream and turn it into a video jam packed with valuable content.

You can then go back through nearly all of the points here to re-share this new mash-up of your original live video.

Additionally, you can go back through your livestream and create a mash-up of all your flubs, um’s, uh’s and any times you may have stumbled over your words to create a fun blooper video to share with your audience.

That’s the whole point of live broadcasting anyway! It’s about as real as it gets, and showing your audience that you, too, make mistakes can help your brand feel more human and authentic.

Repurpose your livestream today

Don’t hesitate to go live on your brand’s social media profiles. Not only is it a great way to connect with your audience, but there are so many other pieces of content that you can get just from one single live video. Never wonder what to do after your livestream again – simply walk through this checklist and start repurposing your video to easily fill out your social calendar.

Plus, audiences are eager to see more live video on social. In the Sprout Index XVI: Above and Beyond, we asked consumers what trends they want to see more of in 2020. 40% wanted more live video, so use these tips to increase the return on your live streaming efforts.
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This post 10 Ways to repurpose your livestream and get more from your content originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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How to Use New Pinterest Features to Improve Your Marketing

Want a better return on your Pinterest marketing efforts? Are you using all of the Pinterest features available to you? In this article, you’ll discover how to use three valuable Pinterest features to enhance the customer journey. Explore the Newest Pinterest Board Features First, let’s uncover how to use these features to optimize your Pinterest […]

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How to conduct a speedy social media audit (free template included!)

It’s no secret that businesses today should have some sort of social media strategy.

But all too often we see companies improvising with little or no plan.

And hey, we totally understand why it happens.

Perhaps you inherited your social presence from someone who was “winging it.” Maybe you haven’t had the time to sit down and really dig into what’s working and what’s not.

Either way, conducting a quick audit can let you know whether or not your social strategy aligns with your business’ goals.

In this guide and with the help of our totally free social media audit template, you’ll have all the answers you need in no time flat.

What is a social media audit, anyway?

A social media audit is the process of reviewing your business’ metrics to assess growth, opportunities and what can be done to improve your social presence.

Don’t let the word “audit” freak you out, by the way. Social media audits aren’t painstaking or tedious (or at least they don’t have to be).

The good news is that our template does most of the heavy lifting in terms of what you need to measure: all you have to do is plug in the numbers.

Download our free social media audit template and simply click “File” and “Make a copy” to edit your own version!

Download Social Media Audit Template

And if you’re using an analytics tool like Sprout, honing in on your most important metrics is a cinch.

Of course, we understand that different brands have different priorities. Feel free to customize your own social media audit template based on your needs, but be sure to include the following:

• Profile information (name and URL)
• Engagement metrics
• Publishing metrics
• Audience demographics
• Referral traffic
• Channel specific metrics

For any type of metric, you should include the percentage change from the previous month or year. Tracking year over year metrics is a good idea because it accounts for seasonal changes. For instance, retail stores usually see a big influx in social media activity during November and December, so it can skew the month over month comparison for January of the following year.

We also recommend conducting audits either monthly or quarterly for the sake of tracking big-picture trends while giving yourself an opportunity to make timely changes.

What do I need to do for my first social media audit?

Let’s say you’re conducting a social media audit for the first time. No sweat!

Below we’ve broken down the step-by-step process for your first audit, much of which can be rinsed and repeated next time you need to analyze your presence.

1. Wrangle all of your existing social media profiles

First thing’s first: you’re going to need to take inventory of your social profiles.

This might seem like a no-brainer, right? But also consider your social profiles beyond “big” networks like Facebook or Twitter. You know, like that YouTube account with two subscribers or the Pinterest profile you haven’t touched in three years.

If there are networks you’re no longer active on, you don’t necessarily need to track them. Just make sure they’re claimed and under your company’s control. On the other hand, an audit might help you uncover opportunities that are a perfect fit for the unique features of networks you’ve been ignoring.

Our social media audit template has tabs for all the major networks, but it’s simple to add a new tab for any additional platforms you use. We also included a section in the summary tab to list all of your brand’s social profiles in one place.

Once you have all your current social profiles listed, the next step is deciding which platforms you want to focus on. Chances are you’re aware of your priorities, but a proper social media audit can be an eye-opener in terms of which profiles are actually your top-performers.

As a quick aside, a tool like Sprout is helpful for keeping all of your social accounts and content consolidated.

 

2. Define specific goals for each network

To keep yourself from getting overwhelmed, it’s important to zero in on your social media goals for each platform you’re active on, including:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Generating more leads and sales
• Increasing community engagement
• Growing your audience (think: followers)
• Increasing traffic to your site

For reference, here’s an analysis of Instagram engagement in our social media audit template.

Not only will goal-setting help guide your presence, but also inform you of which metrics to track for each platform.

For example, you might be growing your Instagram followers faster than that of Facebook but the latter is resulting in more paying customers. When it comes to your metrics, the context of your goals matter.

Keep in mind that you don’t have to fill in every single blank for your first social media audit!

Again, focus on the social media metrics that reflect your goals.

Download Social Media Audit Template

3. Make sure your branding, promotions and language are consistent

Consistent branding on social media is obviously important, but some details are easy to overlook.

As you audit your social presence, make a point to double-check that your profiles “match” when it comes to creatives, promotions and campaigns. This includes:

• Bio and “About” language (when in doubt, refer to your style guide)
• Profile and banner images
• Destination URLs and landing pages
• Hashtags

For example, brands like Skullcandy have consistent profiles from Twitter…

…to Facebook…

… and Instagram, alike.

See how that works?

If you don’t run a ton of social-specific campaigns and are just trying to funnel traffic to your site, chances are not too much will change from audit to audit.

On the flip side, brands that run seasonal campaigns will need to regularly assess these details. For example, you should double-check that you aren’t still running your holiday campaigns in mid-March.

4. Open up your social media analytics

Now that you know which profiles you’re auditing and what metrics you’re looking for, it’s time to dig into the data.

Here is where you’ll be able to identify whether you’re hitting your targets or if there’s room for improvement.

Note that a social media analytics tool like Sprout can really speed up the process of pulling your metrics, not to mention keep them all up-to-date in one place.

In our template, we outline the recommended metrics to look at to identify your profiles’ performance. This includes engagement, link clicks, shares, referral traffic, impressions and more.

We’ve also included notes in the spreadsheet that tell you exactly where in Sprout to find each metric to make your social media audit a bit easier.

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Once you start entering in the data, it should be pretty obvious which channels are outperforming others, especially if you’ve been measuring your efforts already.

5. Identify your top-performing social media posts

Drilling down to individual posts can highlight which types of content you should be creating.

For example, does your audience adore video? Photos? Question-based posts?

Your native analytics for each platform can help you understand what any given piece of content is receiving in terms of:

• Impressions (or views)
• Engagements (comments, “Likes,” shares, etc)
• Reach

If you find sorting your posts by engagement to be too tedious, remember that Sprout Social can highlight top-performing posts in a matter of seconds.

Additionally, our platform can quickly measure hashtag performance across your social profile to showcase which campaigns are resonating the most with followers.

Our template has sections to measure the performance of your publishing overall, as well as your individual top posts. If you want to go more granular, you can also categorize your top posts based on criteria including:

• Videos
• Promotional
• Educational/information
• Entertainment
• Rich media (images and .gifs)

This will give you a clear picture of exactly which type of content is working on each channel. From there, it’s just a matter of fitting more of that type of successful content into next month’s social media calendar.

5. Figure out how you’re funneling your social media traffic.

No surprises here: it’s important to measure the relationship between your social media presence and your website.

This will not only help you understand which posts result in legitimate interest from your audience but also which channels are the most valuable for generating leads.

You can find traffic numbers in Google Analytics under “Acquisition” (and then filter by “Social”). Alternatively, you can use Sprout Social to further highlight the correlation between your social followers and web traffic.

 

6. Dig into your demographic data

From how you speak to your audience to prioritizing different content or platforms, demographic data matters.

For example, messaging for Gen Z and millennials versus Gen X and baby boomers is apples and oranges. As such, age and gender should be included as part of your social media audience.

Some networks such as Twitter and Facebook highlight this information, while Sprout’s Audience Demographics provides a high-level breakdown for all of your profiles.

Ideally, your audience data should be similar across all your platforms. If not, you may want to reconsider your messaging and content strategy for outlying networks.

7. Assess opportunities from new social media platforms

Although not all of them necessarily stick around for the long-term, new social media platforms do pop up rather regularly.

For example, maybe you’re not quite sold on TikTok but are still considering opportunities there. Good! Likewise, becoming an early adopter of new platforms can help you position yourself before your competitors.

In your social media audit spreadsheet, highlight new platforms you want to explore. If you’re using our template, there’s a section for this in the “Summary” tab.

Keep in mind that this isn’t a necessity. If you’re already focused on a few networks or don’t find any new platforms that interest you at the moment, no worries.

That said, it’s always a good idea to stay on top of new and emerging social media trends.

8. Come up with new objectives and action items

At this point, your spreadsheet should be mostly filled out. Now what?

Remember that the purpose of a social media audit is to give you a better understanding of where you are currently and to make plans for the future.

Whether it’s growing your followers on a certain channel, getting more engagement or broadening your audience, you have everything you need to make more informed decisions.

In order to help make your social media assessment more actionable, we included a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis section for each network in the template. You can use this area to add some high-level analysis based on all the data you collect from your audit.

Or to go a step further, conduct a full-blown SWOT analysis after your social media audit to highlight your business’ most pressing opportunities.

Ready to conduct your first social media audit?

If you want to improve your performance via social media, you need to get knee-deep in data.

And conducting a social audit is the perfect way to do exactly that. After reading our breakdown, hopefully you’re inspired to dive into your numbers.

Download Social Media Audit Template

Download our free social media audit template and simply click “File” and “Make a copy” to get started!

To get access to your social metrics all in one place and make every social media audit easier, test out Sprout’s capabilities with a free trial.

This post How to conduct a speedy social media audit (free template included!) originally appeared on Sprout Social.

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