As the year comes to a close and the holiday rush calms down, performing a quick social media audit can give small business owners the clarity they need to start the new year confidently. Within a short timeframe, you can assess the performance of your content, identify your engaged audience, enhance your brand consistency on various platforms, and establish specific measurable goals to guide your strategy. This isn’t about perfection or a massive report, but rather about practical, repeatable steps that turn insights into a simple plan you can act on.
By taking the time to assess your current social media presence, you can identify successful aspects, plus you can pinpoint areas that need improvement. This proactive approach will help you make needed changes and prepare for success in the upcoming year. Avoid waiting until the last minute to assess your social media strategy. Start now and finish strong! This focused, four-part audit will help you get started.
Performance Review: What Worked and Why
Start with top-line metrics: engagement (likes, comments, shares, saves), reach/impressions, and conversions (clicks, form fills, purchases). Pull your top ten posts from the year and ask: what format, caption, or offer made these succeed?
Nearly half of consumers report interacting with brands more on social media recently, so small wins can scale if you repeat the right elements. Use platform analytics and a basic spreadsheet to categorize themes like video, user-generated content (UGC), and product posts for easy replication.
Audience Check: Who’s Actually Following You?
Rather than concentrating on the number of followers on your social platforms, go deeper and pay attention to your audience’s demographics, peak activity periods, and behavioural patterns. For example, after analyzing your top ten posts from the year, you may find that video posts with a behind-the-scenes look at your product performed the best. By consistently creating similar content, you can attract and engage more customers who are interested in your brand.
Additionally, by reviewing audience demographics and behaviour shifts, you may discover very specific details and demographic information about your audience, such as the age range and the time of day they’re online. This insight is valuable because it allows you to make informed decisions about your content strategy.
For example, if you learn that your core audience is primarily in the 25–34 age range and most active in the evenings, you can schedule posts for those times and use messaging, visuals, and offers that resonate with that group. By aligning both your posting schedule and your content with the preferences and habits of your actual followers, you increase the chances of meaningful engagement, stronger brand loyalty, and ultimately, better results from your social media efforts.
Brand Consistency: Is Your Presence Cohesive?
Make sure your visuals and messages are consistent on every platform. This includes your profile photos, bios, links-in-bio, pinned posts, and highlights. When your branding is easy to recognize, customers can spot you more quickly. Plus, since most shoppers look at social media before buying, strong and cohesive branding makes a big difference.
With the growth of social commerce, it’s important to make your product pages, shoppable tags, and unboxing posts consistent with the style of your overall feed. Simple tweaks to your bio, adding matching filters, and using clear calls-to-action can greatly boost the confidence that customers have in your brand.
Future Planning: Set Measurable Goals and a Simple Calendar
Translate audit insights into three specific goals, such as boosting saves by 20%, increasing email signups from social media by 15%, or experimenting with two new Reels formats. Identify the platforms worth investing in for the next year and develop a 90-day content plan comprising storytelling, community engagement, and promotional opportunities.
With more people than ever on social media, it’s important to leverage audience and performance data to decide where to allocate your time and advertising budget.
How MYOB Can Help
If you prefer not to handle this alone, MYOB offers customized social media audits, content creation, and social media management services for small businesses. We help you turn audit results into a practical calendar and effective creative strategies.
Conclusion
A comprehensive year-end social audit doesn’t need to be overwhelming. Focus on performance analysis, audience reach, brand consistency, and future measurement to start the new year with a clear, actionable plan. Are you ready to kick off your audit today? We’d love to help you. Let’s chat!