Audit Your Social Platforms Before 2020: Your Checklist

With the holidays right around the corner, we’re already feeling that the end of 2019 is fast approaching. As you start piecing together your marketing budget for 2020 and considering what worked this year and even, what didn’t work, completing an audit of your social media platforms can be tremendously helpful. 

There’s so many nooks and crannies within each social platform and taking a look at what you can sweep up now before next year starts can help you make some serious gains.

Here’s a general checklist you can use on how to check your social game before 2020 gets into full swing. For retail, primary platforms include: Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest (we’re going to kick Snapchat and Twitter to the side for this exercise, given that the return on investment on those platforms is significantly less)

  Facebook — On Facebook, there’s a lot of nooks and crannies you can easily miss. Here are the basics you should look at before 2020:

-Double check that your “About” section of your page is fully fleshed out. Have you added ALL of the links to your other social platforms, and included your “About story” (you can now link to a blog or write a piece on Facebook about your company)?

-Look at the “Services” tab and make sure that if your boutique does offer personal styling sessions or additional services, those are outlined there as well.

-Consider what messages are set up to automatically respond to those who message you, as a friendly “welcome” message or promotional message about current sales can build a stronger relationship with your customer. Look at your “Settings,” click on the tab that says “Messaging” and from there you can edit your instant reply .

-If your address or location changed, double check that’s updated on your page.

-Make sure your profile picture is compelling and tells the audience who you are.

-You can use the Facebook Business manager to take a glimpse at what posts have done REALLY well and what posts haven’t engaged your audience. Looking at that now, you can start to get more ideas about how to craft stronger content strategies in 2020.

-Lastly, invite your friends to like your page! Facebook recently added a feature that allows you to mass invite your friends on your personal page, to like your page with a click of the button. Take advantage of this feature and get those page likes up for free!

 Instagram — Oh, Instagram. It’s the unicorn of social media platforms right now, with probably the most organic reach out of all of the platforms. Remember that this platform is highly competitive for retail and the visuals need to be stellar. Here’s what we recommend you do from a high level perspective to ensure your Instagram is ready to go for 2020.

-Look at your aesthetic and ask yourself, and those on your team: does this look cohesive? If it doesn’t, you’ll need to consider what you can do to create the aesthetic that will drive growth. This could mean changing photographers, building a custom filter or looking AT apps that allow you to pre-plan. But, if your aesthetic isn’t cohesive, gather your team to brainstorm answers (or hire a social media expert to help).

-Go through the feed and take note of what posts did REALLY well and what posts did just okay. Likes and comments serve as great indicators for what your audience is digging and what you should do MORE of that in 2020. 

-Look at your bio on your profile and consider a rewrite, if it’s not catchy enough. It should convey your key value propositions in your specific tone and voice, use emojis and get people excited about your biz.

-Instagram Highlights are a key piece of your Instagram profile. You should have standardized highlight covers made for this coveted top row of your profile and have them labeled and ordered in a way that makes sense. You could audit these and assess if they need a revamp by considering how you can bring the MOST value to your audience. For instance, showing outfits ideas by season or style could be a great way to engage them.

-Lastly, take a look at your insights tab on your profile and look at your audience demographics. Is it who you thought you were talking to? If yes, great! If not, you’ll want to consider how you can change your strategy to pull in that target demographic you know you want.

 Pinterest — Pinterest for retail can be a highly convertible platform, and the great thing about this social channel is you can repurpose the content you’ve already used for Facebook and Instagram. Creating a robust Pinterest plan that drives sales takes some major strategy (and work!); but here are a few areas you can do your homework in before the start of 2020.

-Look at your boards and consider if they’re optimized for your audience’s search habits. You don’t need to get fancy with your board names but you should have a dozen different boards that people could find organically just by searching what they’re already looking for.

-Give your bio and profile picture a look and double check that those explain who you are and what you do to your audience.

-Who are you following? If you can follow people from other social platforms who are in your target audience, you’ll hone in on their friends too (those people who you also want).

-And last, but certainly not least: think through how you can better leverage Pinterest in 2020. In retail, it’s often underutilized, but there are great case studies of other retailers who have increased their bottom line through advertising on this platform (Modern Citizen, Adore Me, MVMT Watches, to name a few). Whether that’s incorporating buyable pins into your boards or running advertising campaigns that get your pins in front of more people, it is worth your time to look at how to tweak your overall strategy here before the new year starts. 

And that’s a wrap! This starter list can help ensure you’re headed in the right direction, before you drive deeper into your content and ad strategy.

If you’ve got the basics covered and you swept through this list thinking “I’ve done that, now what?” we’d love to talk to you at Oh Hello. Drop us a line and let’s talk about what’s next. Alternatively, if you need help getting all of this done before the busy year is over, we can also do it for you, so say hello and sign up for a free consultative session here: https://calendly.com/natalie-letstalkbrandsandthings.