Whether you’re blowing the dust off your X/Twitter account or your Tweet game has been going strong for years, it’s a good idea to do a Twitter audit to put you on the right track. An audit can tell you how your X/Twitter account is performing (or how it performed in the past if you’ve pushed the pause button), how many followers you have, and other helpful details to support your social media management strategy.
As time passes, your X/Twitter profile may change. Content becomes stale. Even your branding may have slightly changed. Plus, an audit provides a great opportunity to do a fake follower check and get rid of spammy comments and followers that might erode your brand image.
Here’s how you can do a Twitter audit to keep your brand credibility intact and what to do if you discover fake followers on your account.
Table of Contents:
What Is a Twitter Audit?
Is a Twitter Audit Reliable?
Why Is a Twitter Audit Important?
How to Do a Twitter Audit: Step by Step
What to Do About Fake Twitter Followers
Using Meltwater to Do a Twitter Audit
What Is a Twitter Audit?
A Twitter audit evaluates the activity and data related to your X/Twitter account, such as follower count, new followers, unfollows, mentions, engagement, and more.
It can help you to answer critical questions about your X/Twitter presence and Twitter strategy, such as:
- How many of my Twitter followers are real?
- How does my Twitter account perform in comparison to my competitors?
- How does my Twitter presence compare to my Instagram or TikTok?
- Who are my top followers?
- Is my Twitter audience growing?
- Am I reaching my target audience?
- Is my Twitter content engaging?
Using Twitter audit data, you can identify areas for improvement, increase engagement, improve the content you post, and grow your audience. You can also glean insights about your most engaged followers so you can create more targeted content and campaigns in the future.
Tip: Learn how to do a generic social media audit in 10 steps and download our ultimate guide to a social media audit.
Is a Twitter Audit Reliable?
Conducting a Twitter audit can be a reliable, straightforward way to gauge your X/Twitter performance. However, its reliability depends on how you go about it.
There are some social media metrics and KPIs you can track manually, such as follower count and engagement. But a thorough audit looks beyond surface-level data to see whether your followers and engagement are real or the product of social media bots and fake accounts.
Social listening tools like Meltwater's social listening suite can provide more reliable audit results. AI-powered tools and technologies go beyond the surface to learn more about the context behind follower counts and engagement rates. It can detect sudden spikes in audience growth that might indicate fake followers on X, formerly known as Twitter, for example. It also looks for patterns in the data to uncover fake followers better than the human eye can.
What’s more, you can apply this same auditing strategy to the Twitter influencers you partner with. Learn whether your influencers are as influential as they claim — or if they just look good on paper.
Why Is a Twitter Audit Important?
Auditing your X/Twitter account and strategy gives you a better understanding of your status. Know where you currently stand and compare it with where you want to be. From there, you can prioritize the right actions that will help you reach your goals.
As with other social media platforms, X, formerly known as Twitter, has become a place where fake followers abound. Some brands may find that many of their new followers are actually bots in disguise, ready to troll users with spam, hate speech, and false information. And in some cases, people purchase fake followers to appear more influential than they really are. One way to find out who’s the real deal is to do a Twitter follower audit.
Knowing whether your followers are legit is essential to your brand image. If your loyal fans see that you have fake followers on X/Twitter, it could irreversibly damage your brand. Your followers might not trust the content you post. You might also slip lower in organic rankings if you have too many fake followers.
The only way to find out all of the above is to audit your social media account. Conducting frequent audits can help you spot issues early and take decisive action.
How to Do a Twitter Audit: Step by Step
The good news: Conducting a Twitter audit doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming. Here’s how you can do a complete Twitter audit with confidence:
Step 1: Start with your Twitter profile
Step 2: Audit your followers to spot fake accounts
Step 3: Audit your Twitter content
Step 4: Include your own engagement metrics in your Twitter audit
Step 5: Create a Twitter audit report
Step 1: Start with your Twitter profile
First impressions are everything. When Twitter users visit your profile, think about the impression your brand delivers. Will they know who you are and what you do? Will they understand your brand voice? Have you given them a reason to follow you?
Some areas you’ll want to examine during your Twitter audit include:
- Twitter profile photo
- Twitter bio
- Cover photo
- Hashtags
- Website URL
- Pinned Tweet
Changing any of the above, even if they already meet your brand requirements, is a great way to show your followers that you’re active. Tie each of these elements back to your brand goals to ensure you’re delivering the right first impression.
Step 2: Audit your followers to spot fake accounts
Fake “friends” might help you win a popularity contest, but those followers aren’t going to affect your business goals. They won’t convert into paying customers. And if bots do comment on your content, their engagement could turn off potential customers, putting your goals even further out of reach.
One estimate finds that anywhere from 5-30% of Twitter users are fake. Doing a follow check on Twitter can help you separate real X/Twitter followers from the fakes.
Here’s how:
Check your follower growth rate
How quickly your audience grows can indicate potential X/Twitter fake followers. Check your month-to-month growth rate to get a feel for how many real Twitter followers you gain each month. If you notice a spike in newcomers but weren’t running any campaigns or trying to recruit followers, it could be a follower bot Twitter scheme.
Review engagement rates compared to growth
You can also compare your follower growth to engagement. It stands to reason that your engagement metrics will increase alongside your audience growth. If you’re gaining a substantial number of new followers but aren’t seeing a corresponding uptick in clicks, likes, and comments, you might be growing a X/Twitter follower bot army.
Determine your audience relevancy
One red flag of fake followers is that they don’t represent your target audience. You can manually check suspect profiles to see if they follow other brands in your industry or share content relevant to your company.
If you can’t find many common denominators between your genuine followers and your brand, your content strategy might need some work. Your audience shouldn’t be a potluck — you’ll have more success on X, formerly known as Twitter, if your audience cares about your brand and what you offer.
Use a third-party fake Twitter account checker
Fake Twitter account checker tools like Twitter Audit can analyze your X/Twitter audience on your behalf. This removes much of the manual labor from the process so you can skip right to the insights.
Complementary third-party social listening tools like Meltwater's social media listening platform can also help to perform ongoing X / Twitter audits. For example, Meltwater can help you track spikes in follower growth, odd engagement patterns, and other social media analytics to support your strategy.
Step 3: Audit your Twitter content
Everything we’ve covered so far is important to your Twitter marketing strategy and your Twitter management strategy. But ultimately, it comes down to content. If your content isn’t performing well, your Twitter strategy won’t help you reach your goals.
Part of a thorough Twitter audit is to review the content you’ve posted in the past and see how it performed. How many people liked, commented, and retweeted your posts? What about your top-performing posts made them so compelling? When and how often are you posting?
These details might seem minor, but they can add clarity and context to what you create and the results you earn.
- If you notice engagement spikes at certain times of the day, make a note of it.
- If you see that content around a certain topic or style of humor works well, create more content like it.
- If a certain hashtag sends your reach skyrocketing, remember it for next time.
- If you get more engagement with certain content formats (such as videos, text, images, GIFs, threads, infographics, or memes), double down on those formats.
Knowing what’s working and what’s not can inspire better content and a more targeted strategy.
Step 4: Include your own engagement metrics in your Twitter audit
Engagement is a two-way street. Besides the engagement your content earns, you should also audit your own engagement rates with DMs, responses to comments, mentions, and other people’s content.
More and more brands are using Twitter as a customer service channel. Studies show that 64% of X/Twitter users expect a response within an hour. Audit your response times for Twitter users in your DMs and comments to ensure you’re meeting their expectations.
You can also do an audit to see how often you’re engaging with other people’s content. Mentioning other brands and commenting on others’ posts is a surefire way to attract more eyeballs to your own account, grow your audience, and showcase your brand.
Step 5: Create a Twitter audit report
Putting the finishing touches on your Twitter audit, make sure you compile your findings in an official Twitter audit report. This report details the data you collected, the insights you garnered, and any action steps you plan to take.
Each time you do an audit, you can refer back to your previous Twitter audit reports to track your progress. See which actions you took paid off and which areas might need more attention.
What to Do About Fake Twitter Followers
If your Twitter follow check revealed fake followers, there are a few things you can do about it.
First, if you can pinpoint which accounts are indeed fake, you can report them to X, formerly known as Twitter, or manually delete them from your follower list. Red flags include a stock photo as the main profile image, no or few Tweets, and a lack of engagement.
You can also use a follower tracker or fake follower analysis and removal tools to detect and remove bots from your account.
Meltwater's social media analytics tool can also help you keep an eye on your Twitter analytics so you can take quick action to address fake followers before they affect your branding and reputation.
Using Meltwater to Do a Twitter Audit
Conducting a Twitter audit is your best path forward to learning more about your content performance and audience. It not only helps you learn how to improve your strategy, but it also allows you to avoid the damaging effects of having too many fake influencers and followers associated with your account.
Meltwater supports your X/Twitter auditing by providing real-time analytics of your account. Take the guesswork out of what content performs, best posting times, and real vs. fake engagement so you can achieve your business goals without fear.
Schedule a demo to learn more!
