Self-Care for Your Business: Declutter Your Social Media Profiles

Sure, it’s important to always show some love business-to-business, but in the midst of all that recognition, don’t forget your business needs love too! How do you do this? Conduct regular social media audits, decluttering social media profiles, do a deep dive into your social media analytics and insights, and set realistic social media goals. Okay, maybe that’s easier said than done. Let us break those down a bit more. 

How to Do a Social Media Audit

It’s predicted that the number of worldwide social media users will surpass 3 billion by 2021. *blinks* Surprise, it’s 2021! This is a tremendous opportunity to reach online consumers, so it’s important not to pass it up (or get caught with your pants down). 

Conducting a social media audit may sound intimidating, but it really doesn’t have to be. Plus, it’s an essential step for any brand looking to boost its social presence. Not every platform is going to work the same for every business, so an audit shows you what’s working and what isn’t so you can avoid wasting time, energy, and money on flawed future campaigns.

Additionally, auditing your social platforms allows you to determine if your strategy is helping you reach your goals. If it’s not, you can determine how to set more realistic social media goals and rid your grid of content that may no longer be relevant.

Although there is no tried and true universal method for how to do a social media audit, Sprout Social shared some general tools and a simple step-by-step process to help you best prepare.

Social Media Audit Checklist

  1. Wrangle your existing social profiles
  2. Define specific goals for each network
  3. Ensure consistency in branding, promotions, and language
  4. Access your social media analytics and insights
  5. Identify top-performing social posts
  6. Determine how you’re funneling your social media traffic
  7. Dig into your demographic data
  8. Assess opportunities from new social platforms
  9. Brainstorm new objectives and action items
  10. SWOT analysis (optional)

Furthermore, it’s CRITICAL to confirm all business info is accurate — phone numbers, POCs, locations, etc. Test out links and URLs to ensure nothing routes to a 404 error page. If your business description and mission have changed as your brand has evolved, be sure to update this accordingly across platforms. 

Once you’ve identified how posts perform across networks, it’s essential that you keep an eye on things. It’s one thing to conduct the initial audit, but it’s another to consistently monitor your posts to ensure you made adjustments in the right direction. And speaking of consistency, it’s great that you’re posting regularly, but you want to be sure that content is consistent with your brand. 

Make it a point to do a deep dive into your social media analytics and insights monthly, quarterly, and annually to help you maximize your efforts and cross off anything that may be falling flat along the way. Finally, set aside some time to declutter social media to allow for ease of use among consumers.

How to Simplify and Declutter Social Media

We spend a lot of time online – a lot, as in years. And as the world and trends evolve, so does our content. But nobody wants to scroll through the depths of your social media. 

Not only does conducting regular audits boost our social presence, but by focusing on simplifying and decluttering our platforms, we can produce higher quality and more relevant content and create and maintain better connections in the long run. The audit simply sets the stage for a brand to make careful, conscious decisions about social media, but ultimately it’s up to the brand to carry those out. Let one of those decisions be simplifying and decluttering your socials.

Simplify Social Media Profiles:

  • Identify Realistic Social Media Goals (what you want to achieve, which channels are most important, etc.)
  • Brand Check (profile image, bio, description, cover image, shared URL/icons, previously shared content, etc.)
  • Develop Routines (content sharing, content scheduling, clarifying boundaries, etc.)

Declutter Social Media Profiles:

  • Invest Time (give each platform special attention)
  • Account Sweep (wash hands of channels you don’t enjoy, don’t use, or that don’t benefit you; remove irrelevant content, mute accounts that post excessively, or brainstorm ways to revitalize and build upon those previously abandoned or avoided networks)
  • Adjust Settings (turn off email/instant notifications, only check networks at designated times of the day so you take back control of the way you engage with social media as well as the way it engages with you)
  • Curate Feeds (if applicable, create lists of friends/family, coworkers, thought leaders/role models, influencers, competitors, etc.)
  • Schedule Regular Reviews (notice how we’ve come full circle!)

Still unsure how to give your social media the TLC it needs? Get in touch and let us help you get your networks on the right track!