Your Social Media Audit Is Probably Wrong

Halfway through 2025 and your social media feels like a mess.

You know you should be doing some kind of mid-year check-up. Maybe counting followers, checking engagement rates, or scrolling through months of posts wondering what the hell you were thinking with that Tuesday morning motivational quote.

Here's the thing though. Most social media audits are complete garbage.

They focus on vanity metrics that make you feel either amazing or terrible, but tell you absolutely nothing about whether your social media is actually helping your business. And as someone who manages social media for overwhelmed business owners, I see this mistake constantly.

The Vanity Metrics Trap

We've been trained to obsess over follower counts and likes. But social media marketing has remained notoriously difficult to connect to ROI, even though over 96% of small businesses are actively using social platforms.

That disconnect exists because we're measuring the wrong things.

Your follower count doesn't pay your bills. Your engagement rate doesn't book your calls. And that viral post from three months ago? If it didn't move the needle on your actual business goals, it was just expensive entertainment.

What Actually Matters in Your Audit

Real social media measurement starts with attribution. And this is where most small business owners completely lose the plot.

When Sprout Social's team switched from last-touch to multi-touch attribution, they discovered a staggering 4800% increase in pipeline impact.

That's not a typo. Four thousand eight hundred percent.

The difference? They started tracking how social media contributed throughout the entire customer journey instead of just looking at the final click before purchase.

Most small business owners are underestimating their social media impact by thousands of percentage points because they're using the wrong measurement approach.

Your Mid-Year Reality Check Framework

Forget the follower count. Here's what your audit should actually examine:

Pipeline Generation: How many leads came from social media touchpoints? Not just direct clicks, but people who saw your content and then found you through Google, referrals, or other channels.

Conversation Quality: Are you attracting your ideal clients or just random engagement? 48% of small businesses say social media is critical to business survival. Make sure yours is actually working.

Content Performance Patterns: Which posts drove real business conversations? What topics resonated with people who actually bought from you?

Time Investment ROI: How much time are you spending on social media versus the business results you're getting? This one's crucial because time is your most expensive resource.

The Course Correction Process

Once you know what's actually working, the fixes become obvious.

If your content isn't generating qualified leads, you're probably talking to the wrong audience or about the wrong topics. If you're spending hours on platforms where your ideal clients don't hang out, it's time to redirect that energy.

The average person spends 2 hours and 21 minutes daily on social media. Your potential clients are definitely online. The question is whether you're showing up in the right places with the right message.

Making Changes That Stick

Here's where most business owners screw up the course correction. They try to fix everything at once.

Pick one platform. Fix one problem. Give it 30 days to show results.

Maybe that means shifting from Instagram to LinkedIn because that's where your B2B clients actually spend time. Maybe it means posting less frequently but with higher quality content that speaks directly to your ideal client's problems.

The goal isn't perfection. It's progress toward business results that matter.

Your Next Steps

Stop measuring vanity metrics. Start tracking business impact.

Look at your social media through the lens of customer journey contribution, not just final-click attribution. And for the love of all that's holy, stop posting content just to fill space.

Your social media should work as hard as you do. If it's not contributing to your business goals, it's time to make some changes.

The second half of 2025 is wide open. Make it count.

Thanks for reading! If this hit home, you can find more support, strategy, and social media sanity at rachelgetsitdone.com or come say hi on Instagram @rachelgetsitdone. I’d love to connect.