Social media is a powerful weapon for manufacturing companies to gain leads, reach their target audience, build relationships with customers, and boost brand awareness.
But in order to maximize the impact of your manufacturing company’s social media strategy, you need to understand which social media profiles are working well for your manufacturing brand and which aren’t.
This is where a manufacturing company’s social media audit comes in.
In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of a social media audit for manufacturers and provide tips on how to get the most out of it for your manufacturing company.
What does a social media audit do for your manufacturing company?
A social media audit is an important assessment of one’s social media activities on various social media networks. It is an important tool in any B2B marketing campaign.
It involves a review of all social media profiles to gain insights into their effectiveness.
The audit typically starts with a qualitative analysis of all the accounts, which helps to identify any potential issues or changes that could be made to improve the overall performance.
This is followed by a quantitative analysis, which considers the number of followers, likes, comments, and other engagement metrics.
While regular maintenance checks are important, a full audit looks at:
The audit should culminate in a report that outlines the overall findings, providing your manufacturing company with more informed guidance on how to best leverage the social media profiles for optimal reach and engagement.
With the insights gained from a social media audit, manufacturers can adjust their strategies and tactics to ensure they get the most out of their social media campaigns.
Social Media Audits for B2B Manufacturers: Why do it
Social media audits for B2B manufacturers are a critical part of assessing the performance of a business’s online presence and understanding how its content is being received.
By conducting an audit of the various social media platforms used by a business, manufacturers can more accurately assess how their content is resonating with their target audience, identify the most effective strategies for engaging with customers, and identify any areas for improvement.
With an audit, manufacturers can better understand their customers’ needs, identify trends in their industry, and be better equipped to respond to changing customer preferences.
A social media audit can help manufacturers to better understand their competitive landscape, identify emerging trends, and better understand their position in the market.
Ultimately, a well-executed social media audit will provide manufacturers with valuable insight into their current marketing strategy and allow them to make adjustments accordingly.
How do companies audit social media?
The approach to conducting a social media audit may vary depending on the size of the business and the time available. There are several methods that can ensure a successful audit.
- In-depth review. If you’ve got the time and resources, conducting an in-depth social media audit of each of your business’s social media channels is the best way to find opportunities to improve.
- Breadth approach. If you don’t have the time for an in-depth review, you can take a broader approach to a social media audit. Focus on each of your business’s social media channels grouped by importance. For example, start with a content review of your major website’s social media accounts.
- Third-party tools. You can also find social media audit tools to help you quickly and efficiently review the key areas of your business’s social media accounts.
From my more than a decade of experience as a social media specialist, I know this: there is no perfect tool that could give you a complete analysis of your profile. You still need to do the legwork to get the most out of your social media audit.
What should a social media audit include?
In optimizing your manufacturing company’s social media performance, conducting a thorough audit of your current activity is a key step.
This audit can help you identify areas of strength, as well as opportunities for improvement, to ensure you’re maximizing the potential of your social media campaigns.
To begin…
Analyzing Current Social Channel Performance
The careful analysis of the current social media performance of a manufacturing company is paramount for obtaining the most out of the social media audit.
To begin with, it is important to identify the goals and objectives of the manufacturing company in terms of its social media presence.
This will enable the company to determine the most appropriate channels and strategies to use.
In order to maximize the efficiency of the audit, it is beneficial to analyze the analytics from the previous several months to evaluate progress, recognize patterns, and monitor the success of campaigns.
This allows us to gain a comprehensive understanding of the efficacy of these tactics.
By assessing the current social media performance and objectives of the company, it will be easier to identify what works and what needs improvement.
For optimized audit efficiency, it is advantageous to review analytics from the past few months to assess progress, identify trends, and monitor the effectiveness of campaigns.
Identify current strategies and tactics
Many of the current strategies may work well for your manufacturing company, but additional tactics may need to be added to increase the effectiveness of these strategies.
For example, if the goal of your social media campaign is to generate leads, then you should add more lead-generation-focused posts to your strategy.
If the aim of your social media campaign was to build brand awareness, then you should evaluate the volume of content shared on social media profiles.
It is important to note that there are different ways to optimize your social media presence. The goal of the audit is to identify which methods work best for your manufacturing company.
Prioritize social media goals
What is the purpose of conducting a social media audit for your manufacturing company?
It is important to ensure that each platform on which the company is investing time and resources has a goal that is in line with the company’s objectives.
The audit should be conducted in order to identify these goals and ensure that they are being met.
Social media technology has changed so much since we started using it way back. As its technology continues to develop, it has become increasingly clear that not all social media platforms are created equal.
While they all may have the same basic purpose of connecting people, the goals of each platform can and often diverge. This is because each individual platform is owned and operated by a different company, and may have a distinct set of objectives and strategic goals in mind.
Some platforms may focus on connecting people and building relationships, while others may be more heavily focused on marketing and generating revenue. There may be a need to define objectives for these social platforms.
“A social media audit is a crucial step in understanding how to maximize its potential
and ensure that desired objectives are being met.“
It is not out of the realm of possibility that a single platform could have multiple goals depending on the direction that the company takes. Therefore, it is important for social media users to be aware of the differences between each platform and how they operate.
Once you’ve identified the goals of your manufacturing company’s social media audit, you’ll need to determine which platforms align with those goals.
Review the metrics of the current strategy
Once the goals are identified, the next step is to analyze the metrics associated with the current strategy.
This can be done by reviewing:
After identifying the metrics, compare them against the goals set out earlier. If the metrics fall short of the goals, then it is time to reevaluate the strategy and come up with new ones.
Analyze the data
After completing the above steps, it is now time to look at the social media analytics data collected. This includes looking at the number of followers, likes, comments, shares, and other interactions.
It is important to note that some of these numbers may be skewed because of the nature of the business. For instance, if the company sells products online, then it would be expected that the engagement rate would be higher than if the company was selling products offline.
It is also important to understand how the different types of content perform. The type of content that performs better depends on the audience. For example, video content performs better when targeting customers rather than employees.
In addition, it is important to understand what kind of content is most effective. For instance, images tend to perform better than text, sometimes, depending on the platform.
Comparing the reach and engagement of competitors
The concept of reach is of paramount importance when assessing the efficacy of any social media platform.
Reach is essentially a measure of the audience that a platform can access; thus, it is critical for any organization attempting to leverage the benefits of social media to develop an understanding of the extent of any platform’s reach.
Social media engagement is another key metric to consider, as it shows whether the audience is actually interacting with the content being published. It is therefore essential to assess both the reach and engagement rates of any competitor.
If the reach and engagement rates are low, it is not necessarily an indication that social media does not work. You might evaluate your content strategy. You may need to look at the content formats being posted, and the language used in order to identify any potential areas to optimize.
Overall, it is important to strive for high engagement, as it shows that a manufacturing company’s audience is engaging with its content.
Studies have shown that posts with high engagement receive a significant boost in search engine rankings.
Bing confirms that statement; social media plays an important role in SEO for Bing searches.
Therefore, it is advisable for manufacturing companies to track their engagement in order to improve this metric.
Bing certainly ranks pages with more shares higher than pages with fewer shares.
~ Damien Martin, Shufti Pro
Identify B2B customer needs and preferences
An important part of the social media audit for a B2B manufacturing company is to identify the needs and preferences of your customers.
The audit will help you understand what matters most to them, such as the topics they are interested in and the platforms they use most.
This will allow you to create and distribute content that resonates with your target audience, allowing you to better engage with them and build relationships.
To better identify customer needs and preferences in your social media audit for your manufacturing company, there are several steps you can take.
By taking these steps, you can maximize the value of your social media audit and gain the insights you need to improve your campaign to better reach your customers.
Create a social media content plan for your manufacturing company to target those needs
After completing your social media audit, you should have a better idea of what your audience is looking for from your manufacturing company’s social media presence.
Now is the time to create a content plan (a schedule for what content you will release and when) that will help you maximize the benefits of your campaign.
The best way to do this is by targeting those needs your audit identified.
You could also create posts that provide tips and advice on how to solve common problems your business customers face. These types of posts would likely resonate well with your audience because they are addressing a specific problem they care about.
Your content plan should be adjusted as needed based on what’s working, and what’s not, on your social media campaign. The key is to maximize the benefits of your social media strategy to reach and satisfy your customers’ needs.
The key to success is to leverage the power of social media to uncover and meet the needs of your customers.
Forming an actionable social media marketing strategy for your industry
After evaluating your current manufacturing company’s social media performance, it’s time to consider your goals for the future.
What do you hope to achieve through your social media channels?
There may be some social media platforms that the company is not using to their full potential.
Although it is important to explore other platforms and tactics, also keep in mind that there may be limitations associated with budget or staff limitations that may make it difficult to explore new platforms.
This will help you decide whether you need to hire a firm to outsource your social media marketing efforts or if you can handle the responsibilities yourself. It’s important to establish goals that are aligned with the company’s overall objectives.
Put your manufacturing company’s social media audit to work with us
Our social media management service is designed to help your manufacturing company reach its marketing goals with a comprehensive social media audit.
Our specialized team of experts will review your current social media presence, identify areas of improvement, and develop a tailored strategy to improve your social media performance.
Our services also include content creation, optimization, and monitoring, as well as analytics and reporting to measure the success of your social media efforts. With our audit, you can be sure to maximize the potential of your social media channels and reach the desired results.
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