How To Run A SWOT Analysis

One of the more tedious parts of running social media for your business is keeping up with how you stack up against your competition, and how your audience is responding to your content. There are many ways you can go about this, with analytics becoming more and more important with the growth of social media. If you want a thorough, proven method to analyze how you are doing, the SWOT analysis is for you.

What Is A SWOT Analysis?

A SWOT analysis uses four different categories to break down how your social media (or whatever you are measuring) is performing. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. SWOT analysis is especially helpful when you want to assess your performance on a certain platform before you launch a new product or campaign, or when you are creating goals for your social media.

How To Run A SWOT Analysis:

The best way to run a social media SWOT analysis is to work platform by platform. Choose which one you’d like to start with, and take a look at your analytics for that specific platform.

Start with figuring out your strengths. Take a look at a few of your top competitors. While you won’t be able to access all of their analytics, you can still see some. How is your follower count compared to theirs? Is your audience engaging with you as much as they are with your competition? How often are you posting compared to them? Looking into your Share Of Voice is another great way to get some insight into where you stand. Whatever you see as a strength that you have, write it down. Keeping an eye on these numbers will help you during your next SWOT analysis.

The next step is to identify your weaknesses. This step is basically the same as figuring out your strengths, except you will be identifying areas where you are not doing as well as your competitors, or where you did not get the results you expected. See if you can find any patterns between your weak areas- is there a certain time you post that does not get as much engagement? Did you write in a different tone in your caption? Was your video longer or shorter than more successful ones? Identifying these patterns can help you make your weaker areas your stronger ones. Sometimes something small can make a big difference in your engagement rate, and figuring out how to improve will help you hit your goals.

Next, see what opportunities you can take advantage of. Are there any trends in your industry you can jump on? Have you heard of any needs your audience has been expressing that you can meet? This phase of your SWOT analysis is your chance to get creative and see how you can grow your business and your audience.

The final step in the SWOT analysis is to identify any potential threats. Have you been getting negative feedback from customers, or losing an unusual number of followers lately? Has your demographic started to shift? Identify anything that is hurting you, or could hurt you, and brainstorm ways to pivot them.

Running a SWOT analysis will look a little bit different for everyone. Focus on your goals, and be honest about areas where you could improve. Keeping track of where you are now, and where you want to be is the best way to keep your audience happy and help your business grow.