Facebook is one of the oldest social media platforms where brands continue to promote their products and services.
And despite everyone thinking that this platform is old news and no use, marketers continue to consider it the perfect environment to grow their businesses.
Even if a social media strategist’s greatest strengths do not include auditing, performing a Facebook audit once in a while is mandatory.
By analyzing what works and what doesn’t work for your Facebook page, you get the chance to improve your Facebook marketing strategy.
In what follows, we’ll learn how to develop a Facebook audit in a few easy steps. Easy like a Sunday morning, I promise.
How to conduct a Facebook audit
1. What is a Facebook audit?
A Facebook audit is the process through which you review your Facebook business page’s infos and assess your content.
Since Facebook is always adding new features and updates for Facebook business pages, you need to make sure that all the data you display is still valid and updated.
By performing a Facebook audit, you will also be able to spot when there are branding issues or whether your brand’s values and principles are still followed.
If your Facebook content does not reflect what you preach, as a brand, in your About section, then changes are needed. Users will not consider your brand to be a trustful one.
One of your brand’s main goals is to be relevant and to make a difference in your niche and industry.
2. How to audit a Facebook page - a step-by-step guide
When you build your brand’s presence on Facebook, you need to make sure everything is in order, maintaining relevance at all times.
That’s why you have to learn how to audit a Facebook page, update the data and complete with the missing puzzle pieces to remain a trusted brand.
Here is our step-by-step guide on conducting a Facebook audit that will ease your work:
Facebook audit - A simple guide
1.Keep your brand’s profile public and accurate
2.Check and update all profile infos
3.Include a strong CTA
4.Develop a content calendar
5.Create engaging content
6.Post catchy visuals
7.Connect with your audience
8.Interact with other brands, even with your competitors
9.Check Facebook analytics
10.Make the necessary adjustments based on the data you obtain
3. The components of a Facebook audit
If you want an in-depth guide, you’ve come to the right place.
Put your attention and focus at work ‘cause here is what you need to do to perform a Facebook audit that could offer you actionable insights.
1. Facebook profile audit
By closely looking at your brand’s Facebook page, you should immediately see the most important data about your brand, who you are and what you do.
In case you find this data hard to find when you first click your Facebook page, then it is obvious that you need to make changes.
You want your business’ Facebook page to be easy to follow, providing the right infos. We all know how important first impressions are.
1.1. Complete your profile
Start your Facebook audit by looking at your brand’s Facebook page as a visitor. By getting a sense of what your audience sees on your page, you understand what changes are implied.
However, before making any changes, you should save all records for risk mitigation and legal purposes.
Your username should be unique and recognizable, the profile photo should represent the brand and all the links you add in your profile should work perfectly.
Next, go to your Settings menu and make sure you don’t miss out on any setting listed there. Then, complete all the tabs to make sure every setting is established.
1.2. Adjust links and CTA button in the About section
Your Facebook cover photo should include a CTA (call-to-action). If it does, you should see if it’s still relevant.
Is the CTA still in line with your beliefs and services you offer? If not, consider editing that part.
In your About section, you should check all the links provided there to make sure they still work.
Maybe some of them need to be updated in order for your customers to easily find you.
Update your working hours, customer support schedule and phone number to make sure your prospects and clients know exactly when to find you.
1.3. Check SEO
When writing content, any type of content, SEO matters. No exception. What I’m trying to warn you about is that SEO is important for your Facebook page as well.
To test this, go to Google and type in your brand’s name. Your brand’s Facebook profile should appear on the first page.
Next, to prove to your audience that they can trust your brand, complete the Business Manager verification process so you can get your blue checkmark.
This will eliminate any confusion regarding multiple other pages that may have the same name as yours, without being a verified business account.
1.4. Update cover photo and profile photo
When it comes to your brand’s Facebook photos, make sure you use the best shots. Your profile photo should be your brand’s logo and your cover photo should be eye-candy, in the colours of your brand.
If you want, feel free to include a CTA in the cover photo or maybe even a value or idea you are militating for. This will set clear expectations for your audience.
Another important thing you should check is the seizes of your pictures for desktop, tablet and phone.
1.5. Invest in customer service
In today’s world, customer service does not only mean answering the phone. Customers also expect brands to answer their queries on social media as well.
That’s why you need to set in place a schedule for customer support and make it all easier with Facebook Messenger.
Go to your page’s messaging settings and set your greeting message and the Messenger URL for your next customer who wants to get in touch with you.
2. Facebook content audit
Even if the first visuals on your Facebook page work as your business card, your Facebook content is what should keep your audience engaged.
2.1. Pay attention to the overall colour and feel
By scrolling through your brand’s Facebook page, you will get to see how the colours you’ve chosen work with the texts you added.
Do they mix well? Are your colours friendly or do they scream for attention?
Do you know what should catch everyone’s eye? Your content.
All the types of content you use on Facebook should have a similar structure and design in such a way that, if someone sees that independently, they’ll know it’s yours.
2.2. Optimize images and their size
Yes, size matters, especially when we talk about content. Your videos and images should be optimised to fit Facebook’s specs.
High-quality visuals adapted for every type of device will make a huge change, since people pay so much attention to images.
2.3. Learn more about your Facebook audience
Your audience is your judge. We know that some would think that only God could judge them, but hey, maybe you should think twice.
By checking native Facebook analytics, you will discover who is your audience, who are the ones who get to see your posts.
Sometimes your target audience and your actual audience do not coincide. And that’s your business to adapt your content in such a way that it attracts your target audience.
Another thing to keep in mind is that your TikTok audience may not be the same with your Facebook audience. That is why you have to change the content strategy you use.
2.4. Edit your captions
Captions are those little slices of text that accompany your every post. Usually, they are not very lengthy.
That’s why it’s very important to use the right keywords to attract the right users.
Moreover, your captions attract your audience since they should offer more background for your visuals. Choose your words wisely.
Also, there are certain posts where the visual is nothing without reading the caption. Make sure you use the appropriate keywords to offer the needed guidance and insights.
2.4. Review the use of hashtags and tagging
When you analyze your Facebook posts, you should look one more time only to assess your tags and branded hashtags.
Hashtags are those keywords you use that can include your post into a particular cluster based on the topic you have approached.
Consider tagging people or pages that are relevant to your post. In this way, you attract a wider audience, including the followers of those particular users.
Make sure you choose the right hashtags for your Facebook post to avoid misunderstandings.
2.5. Check history post data
By using a third-party analytics tool when performing a Facebook audit, you can get years of Facebook post data, looking at all the posts from the beginning of your brand’s journey on Facebook.
Getting history data, where you can see key metrics for every Facebook post, helps you get a sense of how your brand’s content strategy has evolved.
Moreover, you can notice patterns, trends and gather insights about the type of posts you’ve used. All these can help you craft a better Facebook content strategy to attain your goals.
3. Facebook ads audit
Using Facebook ads can help you boost your organic content. However, when conducting a Facebook audit, you also need to perform a Facebook ads audit.
3.1. Review Facebook ads performance
The way your Facebook ads have performed strongly depends on your ad campaign goals and the industry you activate in.
In Meta’s Ad Library you can see what ads are still running for your Facebook campaign.
Meta's Ad Library offers you so much data such as: CPC, CPM, engagement, likes, comments, reach and impressions.
However, if you feel overwhelmed by the volume of data you can always opt out to use an analytics tool which shows you the split between paid and organic performance on Facebook.
By auditing your Facebook ads, you will know how your next ads should look like on Facebook, changing the format based on your audience’s interactions.
3.2. Focus on developing creative ads
Your Facebook ad should be eye-catching to stand out from the crowd. We all see tons of ads on Facebook every day.
Most of them look the same, using the same visuals and a weak CTA. You should craft Facebook ads that convert, making users stop scrolling and click your link.
If you notice that certain ad campaign are no longer engaging for your audience, maybe it’s time to close that Facebook campaign.
When your Facebook audience is no longer expressing their interest in the products you advertise, you are just wasting your resources.
This is a sign that you need to redesign your Facebook ad campaign and make it more attractive.
3.3. Target your ad campaigns' audience
Another thing to keep in mind when performing a Facebook ad audit is to make sure your ad reaches your target audience.
Like it should happen with the rest of your Facebook posts, your engaging audience should be your target audience.
Otherwise, you’re advertising roses to someone who is only searching for lemons. Your efforts would be in vain.
Make sure you know your audience well. The way you build your ad helps you attract the right people who are also more likely to buy your products and services.
4. Facebook strategy audit
Now, after you have performed an audit for your Facebook profile, content and ads, it’s time to revise your Facebook strategy.
This is an important step to take in your Facebook audit process since you need to centralise all the data you gathered to design a strategy that should be even more efficient.
4.1. Establish reachable goals
Your Facebook strategy should also include the part where you assess how close you are to accomplishing your goals.
Check whether you’ve set realistic goals from the start. If not, maybe you should adjust them, using a doable deadline for your strategy.
4.2. Keep an eye on engagement metrics
By looking through your Facebook posts from your campaign, you can see in Socialinsider analytics on a post level and get key metrics.
Looking at your engagement rate helps you learn how to improve your Facebook content strategy to make sure you’re addressing your target audience.
A high engagement rate indicates that your target audience is interacting with your content.
Learning everything about your Facebook posts’ engagement will help you see with what type of content and tone of voice users are more likely to engage.
Besides the values for average engagement, you also get to see other engagement metrics like post types ranked by engagement, distribution of reactions, distribution of comments and distribution of shares.
To have a high Facebook engagement is not enough to post quality content. You also have to answer your audience’s questions and queries if they exist.
Moreover, reacting to their comments and quickly answering them will help them see the human side of your brand.
4.3. Find the right influencers
Brands from all industries are slowly implementing the use of influencer marketing in their social media campaigns.
However, finding the right influencers for your brand is not easy. A specialised tool could help you find influencers in your industry.
First, you have to see whether they align with your brand’s values. That’s why it’s important to also conduct an influencer strategy audit to see exactly if their services make a difference for your brand.
4.4. Make the best out of scheduling tools
If you are using a scheduling tool for your Facebook posts, make sure you find out what’s the best time to post first.
In Socialinsider’s dashboard, you can check the best time to post depending on your Facebook engagement in the selected time frame.
For Starbucks, the best time to post is on Tuesday, at 4 p.m. This specific time proves that more people from your target audience are active at that moment.
It is important to post on Facebook when you know for sure your audience is there to engage with your content.
4. How to conduct a Facebook audit with Socialinsider
Socialinsider is an analytics tool that provides you with data for top social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and Twitter.
When adding your brand’s Facebook profile and authorizing it, you get to see a lot of insights that can help you when conducting a Facebook audit.
You can use this tool to download your full report on Facebook performance that could serve you as a Facebook audit starting point.
To make the most of this tool, I will show you how you can see history post data for your brand, from the first day you’ve posted on Facebook.
I added Socialinsider’s Facebook page in the dashboard. I selected the starting point June 2019 and I set the end of the interval to be May 2023.
Then, I looked at the key metrics displayed in the Overview section and I noticed how the chart for Posts evolution quickly changed.
Due to the fact that I can see history post data up to 4 years ago, in my case, it helps me find out what worked and what did not work for Socialinsider’s Facebook page.
With this kind of in-depth analysis, looking at a bunch of posts, you can easily find out what trends worked for your brand, you can spot patterns in your annual campaigns and even establish a new content plan.
Next, I clicked the Posts section and I selected the timeframe June 2019 - June 2023. It seems there are 841 Facebook posts.
For every post listed here, you can see individual key metrics like engagement, impressions, likes, comments, shares, clicks, plays and engagement evolution.
Another advantage here that can definitely be useful in your Facebook audit process is that you can see the boosted and non boosted posts.
This helps you when performing your Facebook ads audit, being able to check key metrics for your ads as well.
When looking at such a huge load of history data for your Facebook account, you get a lot of benefits.
Let me just name a few:
Facebook audit benefits
- find the best time frames when your audience is engaging the most by seeing in which months, days and time intervals they are most active
- establish trends, depending on seasonal events (Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day etc)
- use the actionable insights to adjust your current Facebook strategy
- spot trends in your captions, analyzing whether long or short captions work better
- pay attention to visual trends, learning what type of images attracts your audience
- spot which post types are more engaging for your audience
People also ask:
How do I hide abusive Facebook page comments?
To hide a comment you get on Facebook, you just have to click the “Hide” tab, under the text of your comment. However, the comment will still be visible for your team members, but not for the rest of Facebook users who interact with your posts.
How do I prevent visitors from posting on my Facebook Business Page?
Since Facebook pages allow visitor posts, you have to go to Settings to fix this, especially if users share spammy or harmful content.
Open Settings, go to the Page and Tagging tab, click the button right near “Who Can Post on Your Page?” and change it from “Everyone” to “Only Me”. This way, only you and your team members who administer the Facebook Business Page can post.
How do I archive Facebook content on Desktop?
When you archive your Facebook content, saving records for legal purposes, it’s best to open your Facebook Business Page in a desktop browser, open the page’s menu and select “Story archive”.
Next, you can easily use the left-hand sidebar menu to analyze the content in the trash. From there, you can trash, archive or restore items you have removed.
Final thoughts
Conducting a Facebook audit may sound like a complicated and not so necessary action, especially when your days as a social media manager are already so packed with content creation and team coordination.
No one said conducting a Facebook audit is necessary every month, but at least once per quarter is highly indicated since it allows you to optimize your content on the go and not risk losing precious resources.
Now that you have the basic steps of a Facebook audit broken down, you can start running your own and find out which segments need improvement on your Facebook page.
