Performing a Twitter audit may not be your favorite task as a marketer, but it is still something you have to check off your list.
When you separate all the data you can get about your Twitter account into smaller-size bites of information, the picture will become more clear.
This way, you will finally be able to see what’s rotten and what needs to be changed to obtain greater results on social media.
Taking care of your brand’s social media accounts is a huge responsibility and you need to make sure all your marketing efforts are effective.
We are here to offer you a step-by-step guide into a complete Twitter audit for your brand. Take a deep breath, put on your reading glasses and lay back. Your work is about to get easier.
Let’s dive in!🤓
How to conduct a Twitter audit
3.Step-by-step guide to conduct a Twitter audit
- 1. Take a look at your profile
- 2. Analyze your tweets
- 3. Verify your Twitter publishing strategy
- 4. Learn more about your audience
- 5. Check who you’re following
- 6. Evaluate your strategy
- 7. Make improvements to your Twitter audit score
4.How to identify fake followers on Twitter
5.Twitter audit tools to use in 2022
1. What is a Twitter audit?
Twitter is one of the most constant social media platforms out there, with very few changes along the years. Some may say it’s a good thing, while others will consider it a downside.
However, keeping a certain pattern for your posts is certainly a successful thing. This social media channel is the place where debates and opinions are flying at the fastest speed.
A thorough analysis like a Twitter audit helps you see how your brand is performing, determine if you’re moving in the right direction, and uncover your weaknesses.
2. Benefits of a Twitter audit
It’s good to constantly analyze your efforts and strategies. This is why conducting a Twitter audit every once in a while seems like a good idea.
Marketers perform these analyses monthly, quarterly or yearly, depending on their clients’ requests.
Here are some of the benefits of social media audit for Twitter:
- see what are the most liked, commented and retweeted tweets
- review your strategy - you might bring back old ideas if they've worked in the past
- get rid of fake followers - it’s not about the number of followers, but about the value of them
- see what tweets no longer comply with your strategy, tone of voice or brand values
3. Step-by-step guide to conduct a Twitter audit
If you got this far, it is clear that you want to conduct a Twitter audit and you need this step-by-step guide to do things right.
1. Take a look at your profile
First, you should start exactly where most of your audience does, by looking at your Twitter profile. Your brand logo, header photo and profile photo should be aligned.
Also make sure you keep in check the required dimensions. Your profile photo should be 400 x 400 pixels, while your header should have 1500 x 500 pixels.
Make sure your Twitter Bio is not just an empty space. Use those 160 characters responsibly since you have to attract more followers right from the start.
And yes, people really do read social media bios. At least I do. Your bio should explain what your brand’s about and how it can help prospective clients.
If you have some pinned Tweets check to see what they are about. Maybe you have more relevant posts about your latest accomplishments or updates.
2. Analyze your tweets
The next thing you should look at are your tweets. The tone of voice you use and the type of content you spread can tell a lot about your brand.
One of your main interests is to develop your own trademark when it comes to writing. Since the length of the posts is limited, make sure you use the right words to deliver the information.
Then assess the type of content you use. There is a wide range of post types you can choose from. You can test them all and then analyze which ones are performing better to know where your focus should be.
You can choose between infographics, images, videos, blog links, memes, GIFs, how-tos, tips & tricks and many more.
To see how your tweets perform, you can either make use of the native Twitter analytics app or an analytics tool, like Socialinsider.
When you look at your tweets, you will want to check the engagement, impressions and interactions. These are the most important Twitter metrics to keep an eye on.
Another thing to pay attention to is mentions.
Consider answering those tweets. The sooner, the better. Your followers will really appreciate that.
3. Verify your Twitter publishing frequency
As soon as you figure out what type of posts perform better for your brand, you should think about the frequency of posting.
We all know that on other social media platforms the information flow is slower and you do not even need to post on a daily basis. However, with Twitter it’s a different story.
The frequency of posting on this channel is several tweets per day, ranging from 5 to 10 tweets or even more.
Depending on your brand’s policy and the industry you activate in, your number of daily posts can vary.
Make sure you continue using the type of posts that proved to be the most effective after you’ve checked the metrics. This way, you will start improving your marketing strategy.
4. Learn more about your audience
Finding out what your audience prefers, what are their interests and opinions could really help you build a strong community.
You can learn more about your buyer persona and how to transforma leads into partnerships.
First, you have to check your follower growth and engagement to understand your audience’s behavior. Keep count of all the mentions and profile visits as well. Those show you how much people appreciate your brand.
Another aspect that matters is to attract the relevant audience. By using Socialinsider, you can get granular data about your followers.
5. Check who you’re following
Not only your audience matters, but it is also important who you are following. Now is the time to find out which of the accounts you are following are fake ones.
Some of them may have fooled you into believing they are real people. Even if this may take a lot of time since it’s a manual job, you need the patience to do it.
Unfollow those accounts that seem sketchy and keep only those you are really interested in. Maybe you follow other companies in your industry or maybe you have some inspiration sources there.
Keep only the accounts that reflect your brand’s interests.
6. Evaluate your strategy
After you have performed your Twitter audit, you need to put down some conclusions.
What have you accomplished so far?
How much did your brand evolve since your last audit? What’s your next move? Do you want to increase brand awareness?
If you have an answer for all of these, then you surely did a great job and you clearly know how to organize your next marketing strategy.
Developing a new strategy after conducting an audit will help you get the sense of a fresh start. And sometimes starting again, when it comes to your social media strategy reorganization, it’s good omens.
Be bold and adopt new ideas and types of posts that could also inspire others.
7. Make improvements to your Twitter audit score
Now that you’ve gathered all the valuable insights about your brand’s Twitter account, it is time you consider a list of improvements to make.
Don’t hesitate to delete all activity that no longer defines your brand, and write down those tweets that really worked wonders.
Use all of the information in order to improve your future Twitter strategies. And don’t be afraid to also go through the value of your current followers.
We all know how hard it is to attract followers and it’s even harder to engage with the ones that are genuinely interested in your company’s activity and willing to engage.
Despite Twitter being against it, there are many ways to acquire fake followers with accounts made by bots. And it can be tempting.
But building a reputation on fake numbers is not a good idea in the long term. There’s power in numbers, but there’s more power in engagement numbers. And fake followers can’t help with that.
Because fake accounts are almost everywhere, it shouldn’t be surprising if your account is followed by some.
By removing the fake followers, you make sure your messages only reach the people that matter and might be real leads for your business.
Inevitably, the engagement rates of your posts will grow, as well as your Twitter audit.
4. How to identify fake followers on Twitter
Fake Twitter followers are a thing and many businesses try to keep themselves away from them.
Unfortunately, these fake followers are inevitable since you cannot always check all the details.
If you are trying to separate fake followers on Twitter from the real ones, here are a few things you should check:
- Profile picture - A bot or a fake Twitter account avoids choosing a profile picture or they may use a generic one, probably a picture stolen from Google.
- Bio - If the Twitter bio has no data, then something must be fishy. Users generally describe themselves in their bio, writing about their jobs and passions. A fake twitter account or a bot may not complete the bio in detail.
- Twitter handles - If the account name does not match the Twitter handle, then you know that is not a real person.
- Engagement level - Even if you may see bigger numbers, fake followers do not actually add value to your business’ account.
- Unrealistic count - An unrealistic follower count is also something that should make you become suspicious about the veracity of that Twitter account.
- Duplicate or generic tweets - Generic tweets or those which seem to be duplicates in the different conversations, it is clear that the Twitter account you’re looking at is not a real one.
5. Twitter audit tools to use in 2023
To help you get into the nitty-gritty of a Twitter audit, you will most likely need a bit of help digging through all the data.
Here is when Twitter audit tools come in handy. There is a wide range of analytics tools on the market that could help you with your account’s audit.
Here’s a list of the most useful tools you can use to spot bot-generated accounts:
- Socialinsider is a useful analytics tool that provides in-depth data so you can easily perform your Twitter audit.
- TwitterAudit takes 5K accounts samples and it’s said to have one of the best accuracy rates to detect bots.
- Union Metrics is a complete analytics solution which offers you the right amount of data to start your audit.
- FollowerAudit is one of the most detailed free Twitter audit tools, that lets you analyze accounts with a following of maximum 5K, available in a free and also a premium version.
- Group Tweet helps you develop a solid social media strategy, providing a lot of data about Twitter metrics to assess your performance.
- Tweepi is a free tool that finds you the fake accounts for you. However,  you can’t delete them using the tool and you have to do it manually.
- SocialPilot can help you increase engagement and categorize your tweets.
- Botometer is not a bulk tool but rather analyzes one account at a time. However, it lets you check users, friends and followers.
- Twitonomy provides numerous insights, indicating when it’s the best time to post and many other metrics which can help improve your marketing strategy
- SparkToro audits a sample of 2K followers for and runs diagnostics found to strongly correlate with these types of fake followers.
After you’ve spotted the fake accounts it’s time to delete them by blocking them. It’s the only way to force them to unfollow.
However, tools will only get you so far, especially depending on the budget you have attributed to your Twitter marketing. It’s up to you to ultimately make sure you set up and respect the standards of your account.
Find more Twitter tools that can help your marketing game!
Final thoughts
Learning how to perform a social media audit should be one of every marketer’s skills. This way, they will periodically assess the performance of the brand, finding out when it’s time to change the strategy.
Now that you know how to do a proper Twitter audit, it’s time to conduct the first one.
Depending on how active you are on the platform and how important is this channel for your company, you can do it every once in a while.
Remember to save your results and compare them with the following ones.
