A social media audit shows which of your accounts bring in customers and which only use up your time. This checklist covers the three parts of an audit: your profiles, your content and your results. You finish with a keep, fix or drop decision for every channel, backed by 2026 benchmarks.
A social media audit is a structured review of every account your business owns. It answers three questions: are your profiles accurate, is your content working and does any of it lead to sales?
Run a full audit twice a year. Also run a quick one whenever your budget, staff or main offer changes. For most small businesses, the whole job takes an afternoon.
Before you start, gather three things. You need a list of every account, the logins for each one and the last 90 days of numbers from each platform's built-in insights. Ninety days is long enough that one lucky post will not skew the picture.
It also helps to know where people spend their time online. Pew Research Center's latest survey of 5,022 US adults shows YouTube and Facebook still reach the most people. Instagram reaches half of adults, and TikTok reaches more than a third.
| Platform | Share of US adults who use it |
|---|---|
| YouTube | 84% |
| 71% | |
| 50% | |
| TikTok | 37% |
| 32% | |
| 26% |
Source: Pew Research Center, Americans' Social Media Use.
Reach is only a starting point, because your own customers may lean younger, older or more local than the national average. Use the table to check your channel list, not to choose channels by itself. The rest of this audit tells you what works for your business.
Start with the basics, because broken profiles waste every post you publish. Work through this list for each account.
AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Google AI Mode pull business facts from many public sources, which can include your social profiles. When your hours or phone number differ from one profile to the next, those tools are less likely to trust or recommend you. Our guide to getting recommended by AI search explains why matching details matter.
Google lets you add social media links to your Business Profile for seven platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok. Add only the accounts you keep up to date. For tagging your links, our guide to UTM naming conventions shows a simple format that keeps your reports clean.
Next, look at what you post and how people respond. Pull the last 90 days for each platform and check the following.
To judge your numbers, compare them with Rival IQ's 2026 Social Media Industry Benchmark Report. It studies 150 randomly chosen companies in each of 18 industries. The table shows the median engagement rate per post across all industries.
| Platform | Median engagement rate per post |
|---|---|
| TikTok | 2.01% |
| 0.30% | |
| YouTube | 0.21% |
| X | 0.03% |
Source: Rival IQ 2026 Social Media Industry Benchmark Report.
To compare your own posts, add up a post's likes, comments and shares, then divide by your follower count. If you beat the median for your platform, that channel is earning attention. If you sit far below it, the content or the audience needs work.
Brands are posting less often across the board. The same report finds brands post a median of 3.7 times a week on Instagram, 3.0 on Facebook and 2.0 on TikTok. You do not need to post daily, but you do need a steady pace, and our content calendar guide shows how to keep one.
How fast you reply matters as much as what you post. A comment asking about price is a lead, and a slow answer often loses it. Our guide to speed to lead covers how fast small businesses should respond.
The last part of the audit connects social media to sales. Open your analytics and check how many visits, form submissions and calls came from each platform in the last 90 days. If you have not set up tracking yet, our guide to GA4 key events shows what to measure.
Add one low-tech check as well. Ask new customers how they found you, and note every answer that names a social platform. Many people see you on social media and then search for you on Google, which analytics alone will miss.
With your notes in hand, run each channel through the three questions below. The answers give you a clear decision for every account.
Keep a channel when your customers use it and it brought clicks, calls or sales. Look at your top five posts and make more of that type.
Fix a channel when customers use it but results are weak, and you can post twice a week and reply within a day. Change one thing, such as format or call to action, and judge it again after 90 days.
Drop or pause a channel when your customers are not there, or when you cannot keep it up. A quiet, accurate account is better than a busy one that drains your week. Put that time into the channels that work, or try paid ads, which our guide to organic vs. paid social media compares.
Record the results of each audit in one place, so the next one takes less time. Our weekly marketing scorecard is a simple way to track the numbers between audits. This week, block two hours, list every account you own and work through the profile checklist first.
A social media audit is a review of every social account your business owns. It checks your profiles, your content and your results, so you can decide which channels to keep, fix or drop.
Run a full audit twice a year, and a quick check whenever you change your budget, staff or main offer. Most small businesses can finish a full audit in an afternoon.
Cover three areas: profiles and accounts, content and engagement, and results. Check that your business details match everywhere, compare your posts with benchmarks and confirm which channels bring clicks, calls or sales.
Rival IQ's 2026 benchmarks put the median engagement rate per post at 2.01% on TikTok, 0.30% on Instagram and 0.21% on YouTube. Beating the median for your platform is a good sign.
Yes, in most cases. An abandoned account with old hours or a dead link can mislead customers and AI assistants. If you cannot delete it, update the bio to point people to the account you do use.
