by By: Rebecca Rhodes
Although the word ‘audit’ is often daunting and usually elicits groaning, it really is just a process of examination. Just like it’s important to get a routine check up at your local doctor’s office, it is also important take the time to ‘check up’ on your own social media use. Just like in a business, we all have a certain persona that we hope to portray on our social media profiles, and conducting a social media audit can help show you how well that persona is coming across.
- Determine your personal brand
The first step to any social media audit is to determine your personal brand. Branding is the art of aligning what you want people to think about you with what people actually think about you. Some strategies to help you identify your personal brand include
- Make a word cloud out of keywords you believe define you and help set your morals
- Use those keywords to create a bio for a specific social media profile
- Tell stories with your posts that help bring insight to your character
- Define your strengths: What are you good at?
- Define your morals: What is important to you?
- What’s your purpose of being on social media?
- Audit yourself!
Check yourself before you wreck yourself – seriously! Now that you’ve determined your personal brand, it is time to determine how effectively that brand is being portrayed. Some questions you will want to answer in your personal social media audit include:
- What social media audits are you present on?
- What other profiles do you particularly admire and why?
- What type of content have you been publishing?
- What sort of social media activities do you engage in?
- How frequently do you post?
- What’s your social media popularity and reach?
- How can you improve?
Personal Development
The last step in conducting a personal social media audit includes answering that last question: How can you improve your presence on your personal social media? Evaluating your audit results allows you to understand how you can improve your own brand, and improving your own brand can help you reach your own goals. Perhaps it seems futile but 21st century technological advances have eliminated our privacy levels, and how you come off on public social media platforms can affect your credibility, how you are treated, whether you get a job, or even help you establish powerful contacts in the professional world. Your personal brand is important!
Rebecca- I agree with you that it is important to audit your own social media accounts. I have done this a few times. I have had my Facebook since high school and have acquired more professional friends as the years have gone by. Some of the content I posted on Facebook, in high school, no longer accurately represents me. I took the time to figure out what I wanted to portray across my social media profiles and have been trying to stick to that persona.
Rebecca, loved this post! I think developing your personal brand is extremely important as more and more employers turn to your online persona to get a feel for your personality, writing and professionalism. It is interesting to think back to the ways we utilized social media 5 years ago and compare it to today. For me, social media is just as much a professional networking tool as a way to express my personal brand and life.
Rebecca- I found this post to be very interesting, as I have not considered performing a social media audit on myself! As someone who wants to work in social/digital media, I am constantly monitoring my sites and ensuring that my online persona translates across different platforms. I agree that everyone should have their own personal brand; in a competitive market, personality is what will set you apart to employers. Also, the questions you have listed to ask yourself when auditing your social media are great, and I will definitely keep them in mind when I am analyzing my sites.
Rebecca,
This is a great way to look at social media auditing! I think sometimes we forget that our personal brand is determined through our use of social media. Looking through these questions and examining our own social media is an important part of being a responsible and professional communicator. We need to do this in order for our own bands to reflect what we stand for. We can then be more successful in the audits we do for other companies. One question I did think of when reading your post was how often do you think we should be auditing ourselves on social media?
Rebecca,
I really liked your blog post. We spend a lot of time in the School of Journalism and Communication evaluating others when in-fact we should also be evaluating ourselves. Especially, because its so common for employers to look at social media.
I think a huge thing a lot of students forget to do (myself included) is determine a personal brand. In J 452 we did make a social media plan, however, we didn’t really evaluate ourselves. I feel like determining a personal brand will allow you to be able to tailor the content you post so that you are in-fact being “seen” by the public how you want to be seen.
I’ve actually always wanted to do an audit on my social media platforms ever since I heard about what a social media audit was. I have my own YouTube channel and Instagram account that I use for branding purposes and I’ve always been interested in seeing what posts work, who my audience is and their conversations mentioning me or my channel. I can’t wait to answer some of these questions and see some of the results I find! Thanks for your insight.
Love this post! It is so important now a days to have an impressive social presence online especially if you are looking to go in to marketing, pr, or advertising. Employers and clients want to see that you know how to use these channels properly and have a chance to see you personality online. You can even use it as a tool to find a job if it is looking good enough! Here is a website that I’ve found to check your language on social media and clean up if necessary. A good tool if your social media used to be wayyy different a couple years ago. http://www.simplewa.sh/login
Rebecca,
Wonderful post! I think several of us need to take the time to throughly audit ourselves to understand our brand better. This will help us reach, and communicate, with the audience more efficiently. In addition, it allows us to find who our audience is. Being able to give yourself a brand will help separate us from the competition.
– Mike
@mikeeiden11
I think a lot of young professionals definitely forget to market themselves, and therefore, audit themselves too. A lot of the time people don’t even think twice before they tweet — doing a self audit would definitely lead an individual to a better understanding of their personal brand on social media.
Really important good piece.
Just like brands, so crucial that you are able to understand yourself on social media. Often I think it’s really hard to tell how you come across, and a pair of eye that aren’t your own can be super helpful in reaching a good understanding.
Great post! I think it’s great that you mentioned that you need to define your personal brand first. I see so many firms whose posts are all over the place. It is clear that they either have multiple people posting or that their is no direction or theme to their content. Having a theme and consistency is really important. Keeping your voice consistent through out should also be emphasized. I remember the first time I was asked about my personal brand during my time at the SOJC. At first I was panicked, I literally had no idea what to say. Now I am proud to announce that I have an answer and content to back it up!
Great post Rebecca. I often do an informal audit on my social media accounts by checking in and to see what kind of posts I publish get the most interaction, what hashtags gain the most attention, and if the frequency in which I post affects how much interaction my posts receive. The reality that I have found is that all of the above affect the results. I feel that I have a strong personal brand, but I could do a better job of implementing it with some of your tips!
Rebecca, this is great! I feel like it’s easy to get caught up in what corporations and brands are doing on social media and it’s easy to forget that our own brand does matter in this industry. Specifically, I like what you said about determining your own brand. I think your social media presence should be a personal reflection of your professional self. What you bring to the table, how’s your personality going to fit a group, and what’s important to you should all be reflected through what you say publicly on social channels. I think that working this out is difficult and easily over-looked. Thank you for the insights!
Hi Rebecca,
WOW. Just wow. You are an excellent writer and I was highly captivated throughout your entire post. I especially like how you pointed out that “Branding is the art of aligning what you want people to think about you with what people actually think about you.” I’ve never thought of it in that way before, but it’s so true. When I think about how I want potential employers to see me, I make sure to reflect that persona in every possible platform of mine that they view as to assure that what I want them to see is in fact what they see.
I also think it is a lot more effective to refer to your behavior via social media as “your brand” especially when trying to get the message across to younger generations who are constantly found guilty of posting things that might be a bit inappropriate on social media.
Thanks!
-Alysia
Rebecca –
After reading your blog post I definitely wanted to conduct a social media audit on myself. Especially since next year I will be a senior and looking for a job right after graduation. I never even thought about how I would brand myself and what keywords I would use most to describe my goals and aspirations. I am constantly looking for a way to improve on all social media platforms and I think conducting an audit on myself will definitely help. Thank you so much for all of your tips!