Template 04 - Planning & Strategy
Free Social Media Audit Template
RecurPost’s social media audit template produces one thing: an ordered list of fixes with an owner against each. It runs eleven stages against one account set and one fixed review window, and it is free. This page shows every stage, one completed finding from a real-shaped example, and the rule that decides which fix goes first.
1. THE ARTIFACT
The Eleven Stages in the Workbook
The workbook runs eleven stages, and the split matters: the first seven gather evidence, and the last four turn it into work.
Stage 7 stays deliberately thin. Two or three comparable accounts, the same window, published volume only. Detailed competitor comparison has its own workbook in RecurPost’s social media templates library and it does not belong inside an audit.
STAGE 6 IS THE ONE PEOPLE LEAVE OUT
An account that looks quiet is often an account whose posts are failing, and a failed post produces the same silence as a post nobody wrote. Counting failures separately is how an audit tells the difference between neglect and a broken connection.
BUILT FOR
An account set you have just inherited, where you have to say what the first month will fix.
SKIP IF
Accounts you already operate. Re-auditing your own work produces findings you already knew, and the analytics workbook in RecurPost’s social media templates library does that job properly.
STAGE
WHAT IT CHECKS
WHAT YOU RECORD
01 Account inventory
Which accounts exist, including the ones nobody mentioned
Network, handle, who holds access, active or dormant
02 Profile completeness
Whether each profile is finished
Bio, link, category, contact details, cover and avatar present or missing
03 Publishing cadence
How often each account actually published
Post count in the review window, against the commitment
04 Content mix
What kinds of post the account produces
Counts by format and by theme
05 Engagement
What the audience did with it
Engagements and reach or impressions for the window
06 Publishing failures
Posts that were meant to go out and did not
Failed, rejected and expired-connection counts
07 Competitor baseline
What comparable accounts published in the same window
Two or three accounts, published volume only
08 Findings
What each stage tells you
One sentence per finding, tied to an evidence value
09 Priority
Which fix goes first
P1, P2 or P3 under the rule below
10 Owner
Who does it
One named person per finding
11 Next action
What they actually do
A countable instruction, not an intention
2. THE SEQUENCE
Inventory, Measurement, Diagnosis, Prioritization, Execution
You work the eleven stages in five movements, and only the last one puts anything in a calendar.
The workbook ends in a priority column, not a score. An agency taking over five accounts for a regional food bank runs it once, against ninety days, and finishes with a list it can start on Monday.
ONE WINDOW, EVERY STAGE
Set the review window before you record a single number, and use the same window for every measurement stage. An audit that measures cadence over six months and engagement over four weeks produces findings that quietly disagree with each other, and the disagreement surfaces in the client meeting rather than in the sheet.
PUT A DATE RANGE IN THE CELL
An audit run against “the last few months” cannot be defended.
NOT A REPORTING LOOP
You are not tracking a trend. You are establishing what is there so you can say what the first month of the retainer will change.
MOVEMENT
WHICH STAGES
WHAT YOU FINISH WITH
01 Inventory
1
A list of accounts, including the dormant ones
02 Measurement
2 to 7
Counts, all taken from the same review window
03 Diagnosis
8
Findings, each tied to an evidence value
04 Prioritization
9 and 10
An ordered list with a named owner against each item
05 Execution
11
Countable next actions, ready to schedule
3. WORKED EXAMPLE
One Completed Finding
One finding from the food bank’s audit runs from a ninety-day window to a scheduled fix.
EVIDENCE, NOT VERDICT
The evidence value is a count, not a verdict. “11 posts in ninety days” survives a client disagreeing with it, and “Facebook has been neglected” does not. Every finding in the workbook is written to carry its own number for exactly that reason.
A SECOND FINDING
Stage 6 recorded four Instagram posts that failed to publish inside the window because the connection had expired and nobody was checking. That is also a P1, owned by the same account manager, and its next action is to reconnect and re-queue the four posts.
ELEMENT
WHAT THE ROW HOLDS · FOOD BANK, FACEBOOK
Review window
1 April to 29 June, ninety days
Stage
3, publishing cadence, Facebook
Evidence value
11 posts published in the window, against a stated commitment of three a week, which would have been about 39
Finding
Facebook published at roughly a quarter of its committed cadence
Priority
P1, because scheduling closes the gap
Owner
The agency’s account manager
Next action
Rebuild a three-a-week Facebook schedule, which is 12 posts a month
4. THE RULE
The Priority Rule
The workbook orders findings by what it takes to fix them, not by how bad they look.
A severity ranking produces a list nobody can start. Ordering by dependency puts something actionable at the top.
EVERY FINDING NEEDS A NEXT ACTION
The rule works when every finding carries a named next action. A finding with no next action cannot be prioritized, because there is nothing to depend on.
WHERE IT GOES INSTEAD
A finding with no next action belongs in the notes rather than the findings tab.
TWO P1s COEXIST
Two P1 findings coexist happily, because the priority column orders work rather than ranking how bad things are.
PRIORITY
THE FIX DEPENDS ON
WHAT THAT MEANS ON MONDAY
P1
Scheduling work
Someone queues posts and the finding closes
P2
Assets that do not exist yet
It waits on production, so it is scoped rather than started
P3
A decision from the client
A new channel, a budget or a policy change, which needs a meeting
5. THE ARITHMETIC
The First Month the Audit Produces
The food bank’s first month is already written: 12 Facebook posts on a three-a-week rhythm, plus the four re-queued Instagram posts.
Those sixteen posts get dates in RecurPost’s social media calendar, which shows the month in Month, Week or List view so a rebuilt cadence is visible as a pattern rather than a list.
P1 GOES FIRST
Scheduling work is what closes a P1, so the P1 findings are the first rows that get dates.
A COUNTABLE INSTRUCTION
Stage 11 records a countable instruction, not an intention. “Rebuild a three-a-week Facebook schedule” is 12 posts a month, and that number is what goes in the calendar.
FIX
POSTS
Facebook, rebuilt at three a week
12
Instagram, four failed posts re-queued
4
First month
16
IN ONE UPLOAD
→
ONE MONTH
16
posts across two accounts
Sixteen is the number you schedule. Each post gets a date, and both P1 findings close once the batch is live.
6. THE FILE
File Format, Access and What Happens When You Submit the Form
RecurPost gives the social media audit template away free. The file is a spreadsheet, and you take your own copy and edit that copy, so nothing you record about a client reaches anyone else.
The form asks for six details and requires one. Business email address is the only required field, and full name, organization, employee count, country and company URL are optional.
RecurPost sends the workbook to the business email address you supply, and the confirmation on this page tells you it is on the way.
FORMAT
One spreadsheet, eleven stages, ending in a findings tab.
ACCESS
You take your own copy, so nothing you record about a client reaches anyone else.
PRICE
Free, one required field, no card.
FREE TEMPLATE
Get Your Free Template
Business email address is the only required field.
7. THE HANDOFF
Loading the Month Into RecurPost
RecurPost loads the dated month in one pass with bulk scheduling, which accepts CSV and Excel files, sets no hard cap on posts per upload, and works best at around 100 posts a batch.
THREE DOCUMENTS
The workbook holds the findings, the calendar holds the dates, and the bulk file is what you build once the dates are set.
BATCH SIZE
~100
RecurPost sets no hard cap on how many posts one upload can carry and works best at around 100 posts a batch. The food bank’s sixteen-post first month therefore fits inside a single upload.
WHAT IT FITS
16 / 16
Bulk scheduling fits work that is already decided and dated, which is what the audit’s next-action column produces. A finding whose next action is not countable has nothing to put in a row.
Run the eleven stages once, order the findings by what the fix depends on, and schedule the P1 list in one upload.
8. FIT
What the Audit Does Not Do, and Which Template to Use Instead
The audit records what is there. It does not fix anything, and it does not decide what the accounts should be doing instead.
THE LIBRARY
All three sit in RecurPost’s social media templates library alongside the calendar, campaign and proposal documents.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO
USE
WHY
Find out what is wrong with an account set you have just inherited
This social media audit template
It runs once, against a fixed window, and ends in a priority
Decide what the accounts should be doing instead
The social media strategy template
The audit supplies the evidence its current-position section cites
Report on accounts you already run, every month
The social media analytics template
It holds the formulas and the monthly loop
Try RecurPost
RecurPost’s Agency plan covers 20 social accounts and includes 3 team members. RecurPost prices an extra teammate at a flat $20 per month on any plan instead of multiplying the plan price by every seat. An agency that has just taken over five accounts is nowhere near the account ceiling, and the P1 list from the audit becomes the first month of scheduling across all five.
RecurPost is the social media management software agencies run their client publishing on.
No credit card required
Frequently Asked Questions
What the audit checks, how a finding is ordered, and how the file reaches you.
What does a social media audit check?
A social media audit checks eleven things: account inventory, profile completeness, publishing cadence, content mix, engagement, publishing failures, competitor baseline, then the findings, priority, owner and next action it produces. The first seven gather evidence. The last four turn that evidence into work with a name against it.
How do you prioritize what an audit finds?
Order findings by what the fix depends on: P1 when scheduling closes it, P2 when it needs assets that do not exist yet, P3 when it needs a decision from the client. Ordering by severity produces a list nobody can start on Monday, because the worst problem is often the one that needs a budget conversation first.
How far back should a social media audit look?
Set one review window before you record any number, and use the same window for every measurement stage. Ninety days is a workable default for an account that posts weekly. What matters more than the length is that cadence, content mix, engagement and failures are all counted over the same dates, so the findings cannot contradict each other.
How do I get the template, and what do I receive?
RecurPost sends the social media audit template to the business email address you supply on this page. The file is a spreadsheet, it is free, and you take your own copy and edit that. Business email address is the only required field on the form.
Discover your must-have Social Media Templates
The audit says what is there. These are the documents that decide what happens next.
01
PLANNING
Social Media Strategy
Map a client’s goals, audience, and posting plan.
02
PLANNING
Strategy Presentation
Pitch the strategy to a client in slides.
03
PLANNING
Marketing Plan
Lay out channels, cadence, and owners for the quarter.
01
CALENDAR
Social Media Content Calendar
Plan a month of posts across networks.
02
CALENDAR
Instagram Content Calendar
Plan an Instagram grid and feed in advance.
03
CALENDAR
Google Posts Calendar
Plan Google Business Profile posts ahead.
01
CAMPAIGN
Social Media Campaign
Build out a time-boxed campaign’s posts.
02
CAMPAIGN
Campaign Proposal
Pitch a campaign to a client for sign-off.
03
CAMPAIGN
Paid Social Media Ads
Plan paid ad sets, audiences, and budgets.
01
REPORTING
Social Media Analytics
Track post and account metrics in one sheet.
02
REPORTING
Social Media Reporting
Package monthly results for a client.