Most companies nowadays base their marketing plans heavily on social media. Companies may actively interact with consumers, advertise their brands, and track public opinion of them on sites like Twitter. Twitter presents a great means of audience connection.
Many companies, meanwhile, create social media accounts without a defined plan and let them lie empty or filled with pointless information over time. This really weakens rather than enhances their brand. Companies should so routinely check their Twitter presence to match their present messaging and corporate objectives.
The Importance of a Social Media Audit
A social media audit refers to thoroughly evaluating profiles on platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to assess what’s working and what can be improved. It involves:
- Reviewing the content published in the past few months.
- Analyzing engagement and reach metrics.
- Checking follower growth.
- Monitoring mentions and direct messages.
- Ensuring branding consistency.
- Identifying ideal posting frequency.
Conducting such an audit for Twitter can provide deep insights into how well you are leveraging the channel. It also highlights content, engagement, and follower growth opportunities. For a streamlined Twitter cleanup during the audit, consider using tools like TweetEraser to manage your content and optimize your profile efficiently: https://www.tweeteraser.com/.
The audit helps create or update your Twitter strategy. You can set goals like increasing website traffic, generating more leads, building thought leadership, driving sales, or improving brand awareness. The associated metrics can then track performance.
Key Reasons Brands Must Audit Their Twitter Presence
Here are some top reasons why regular Twitter audits are crucial:
1. Evaluate Content Performance
The Twitter audit reveals which types of updates (educational, promotional, entertaining etc.) perform best. You can identify content themes that resonate with your audience and repurpose them for future posts.
Analyzing tweet engagement metrics also shows content gaps. You may find certain products, services, or campaigns lacking updates. Or some tweets receive no comments, likes or retweets at all.
You can course-correct by focusing on underperforming areas so no topics remain neglected. The audit highlights what followers care about most. So, catering to their interests further boosts engagement.
2. Assess Follower Sentiment
Twitter analytics give you quantitative engagement data, but tweet replies and mentions give you qualitative insights. Then, you can check if followers are asking questions, sharing feedback or recommending products.
This is a reflection of how audience needs are or aren’t being met. Customer service conversations also serve as a way to gauge the customer problems or complaints so you can address them better.
3. Ensure Brand Consistency
As you add more people to an account, Twitter messaging can lose its core brand identity over time. An audit will look at tone of voice, imagery, captions and other pieces that should be consistent with the overall branding.
Customers across channels are engaging with your business and it’s important that you maintain consistency across channels. Reinforced with similar visual styles, make sure the aesthetics of Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram match.
4. Set Goals to Level Up Engagement
With existing performance benchmarks, the audit helps set goals for metrics like:
- Increasing tweet likes by 10%.
- Growing followers by 5000 in 6 months.
- Getting 25 retweets per tweet.
- Generating 500 clicks per campaign hashtag.
Such measurable objectives allow tracking progress to keep engagement thriving. Any shortfalls highlight areas needing work, like content improvement or wider outreach.
5. Monitor Competitors on Twitter
See what your competitor’s Twitter accounts are posting and how their audience is reacting. This reveals what their followers find interesting compared to your content. You can get ideas on new topics to cover or different visual styles to experiment with.
Monitoring the competition also lets you stay updated with their product launches, campaigns and other initiatives. This ensures you can respond effectively with your own messaging.
Overall, keep up with competitors but avoid copying them outright. Tailor takeaways from their activity to your brand voice for the best impact.
Steps to Audit Your Twitter Presence
Here is a step-by-step process to audit your business Twitter account effectively:
Set Up Analytics
First, integrate Twitter analytics with your account if you haven’t already. Navigate to Settings > “See analytics about your Twitter account.” This displays key metrics under the Analytics tab.
You can also link Twitter to Google Analytics for more granular tracking. The relevant tags and events then showcase engagement data.
Review Historical Performance
Analyze account performance for the past 3-6 months. Factor in trends for tweets, engagements, followers and clicks. See which posts drove the most traction, too.
This gives a broad overview of how well the account has been performing and the content themes that work best.
Evaluate Individual Tweets
Next, review metrics for each tweet across parameters like:
- Impressions.
- Engagements.
- Link clicks.
- Retweets/Comments.
- Media views for visual posts.
This shows the types of updates that resonate most with followers in terms of reactions and clicks. Any low-performing tweets also surface.
Audit Followers
Check follower growth for the evaluated period. In the analytics section, you can also see follower locations, active hours and interests. This profiles the audience further to shape content.
Moreover, download the follower list to review names and bios. Check their industry, job role and company details. Such insights help craft more relevant, targeted updates.
Check Mentions
Scan recent @mentions to see questions, feedback and conversations from followers. This helps gauge sentiment and pinpoint audience needs for better alignment.
Respond to unresolved queries and consider creating FAQ update threads. Mentions also show what key industry players or influencers are saying.
Study Competitors
Research 3-5 competitor Twitter accounts in your niche. Compare their content strategies, engagement levels and follower profiles with key takeaways for your own growth.
See which topics and tweet formats they excel at and if any creative tactics apply to your brand messaging as well.
Set Goals
With the audit learnings, establish goals for the next few months. These may cover monthly tweet volume, retweets, clicks and other engagement objectives, plus follower growth targets.
This keeps efforts focused on strengthening account performance across parameters in a results-driven way.
Reallocate Resources
If any gaps emerge in content, community management or visual assets, plan additional resources. This ensures you can create regular, high-quality updates at optimal frequency.
Bulk up your creative inventory like images and videos, so engaging tweets never stop!
Best Practices for an Impactful Twitter Presence
Alongside regular audits, keep these best practices in mind to maximize your brand’s Twitter presence:
Show Personality. Let your brand values and passion shine through so followers relate more to the human side versus a faceless company. Share team events, awards or employee stories.
Make Content Visual. Research indicates that tweets featuring images uploaded via Twitter’s native service are 94% more likely to be retweeted than text-only tweets. For higher engagement, use infographics, product visuals, behind-the-scenes photos and more.
Respond to Mentions. Reply to follower queries and comments with helpful answers. This fosters positive relationships and satisfaction.
Promote Other Profiles. Cross-promote blog posts, founder LinkedIn profiles or sister brands’ Facebook pages. This expands reach while adding value for audiences.
Curate Content. Share original tweets, industry news and rending memes, retweet influencer content. It’s this that balances formats for wider appeal.
Localize Your Presence. Your tweets geo targeted to specific countries and cities help you attract more relevant followers. This then drives region specific engagement.
Conclusion
Twitter may seem like a straightforward social platform, but brands often spread themselves thin with ineffective strategies. Conducting a periodic audit identifies weak spots while revealing what works.
You can course-correct by highlighting popular content themes, addressing follower feedback and setting metrics-driven goals. Competitor analysis also ensures you remain updated on the latest trends within the niche.
Maintaining engagement momentum using interesting images, community interactions, and well-balanced content structures can help. In the end, a strong Twitter presence matched with corporate goals will become a useful marketing tool.
Plan your audit; it just takes a few hours but yields incredible rewards by means of guided data-based enhancements! Use these ideas to highlight your brand identity, awareness-raising, lead-generating, and Twitter success tool.
Lynn Martelli is an editor at Readability. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University and has worked as an editor for over 10 years. Lynn has edited a wide variety of books, including fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, and more. In her free time, Lynn enjoys reading, writing, and spending time with her family and friends.