The Platform-Fit Audit: Stress-Testing a Client's Channel Mix

Marketing Academy · Field Work●Social Media Marketing

All projects·From: Social Strategy Basics

CoreAudit· 35 minutes

Freshworks

Objective: Given a real 6-platform posting log with follower counts, posting frequency, and audience skew, apply the lesson's audience-first framework to flag platform-fit mistakes and recommend a 2-platform focus.

You're a marketing contractor auditing Freshworks' regional social presence before a Q4 budget review. The team is active on 6 platforms with a flat content calendar, no stated goal per channel, and the same post copy pasted across every one.

Score each platform against the stated target audience (28-45 year old IT/ops decision-makers at mid-size companies), flag the mismatched channels, and recommend which 2 platforms deserve the budget.

Before you start

What you'll need

Free path (everything below is enough to finish)

Google Sheets

FreeImport and score the platform audit log

Free, no account friction, handles sorting and scoring columns without a paid analytics tool

The process

3 steps

Step 01 of 03

Filtering platforms by audience match, not raw reach

The lesson's data section shows Facebook has 3.07 billion monthly users, but that number is irrelevant if your specific buyer's account is dormant. Audience match beats raw reach every time.

The posting log shows Facebook has the highest follower count (18,400) but Reddit has the highest share of users matching the 28-45 IT/ops profile. Which platform should the recommendation actually favor?

Google Sheets— Import platform-audit-log.csv, one row per platform with follower count, posting frequency, and audience age/role skew.

Procedure

Import platform-audit-log.csv and freeze the header row
Add a column scoring each platform's audience skew against the 28-45 IT/ops target (high/medium/low match)
Sort by audience-match score, not by follower count

Sample output

PLATFORM AUDIT LOG (6 rows)
  Facebook    18,400 followers   3x/week   audience match: LOW (skews 45-65, consumer)
  Instagram    9,200 followers   5x/week   audience match: LOW (skews under-30, visual)
  LinkedIn     6,100 followers   1x/week   audience match: HIGH (B2B, IT/ops titles)
  Reddit       2,300 followers   0x/week   audience match: HIGH (r/sysadmin, r/ITManagers active)
  TikTok       4,700 followers   2x/week   audience match: LOW (skews under-25)
  Pinterest      800 followers   1x/week   audience match: LOW (visual consumer products)

Healthy

LinkedIn and Reddit get flagged as the highest-audience-match platforms despite lower follower counts than Facebook or Instagram.

Unhealthy

Recommending Facebook and Instagram be kept because they have the most followers, ignoring that neither matches the target buyer.

What this means

Follower count measures past effort, not future fit. A 2,300-follower Reddit presence in the right subreddits outperforms an 18,400-follower Facebook page with the wrong audience.

So what do I do about it?

Symptom	Action	Effort
Budget review is about to fund the two biggest-follower platforms	Re-rank the platform list by audience-match score before the budget conversation	30 min

YouYou can do this yourself, no engineering access required.

Step 02 of 03

Assigning one goal per channel

The lesson's Step 4 says each channel gets exactly one job, awareness, traffic, leads, or direct sales. Mixing goals produces content that does none of them well.

The LinkedIn page's last 10 posts mix product announcements, job postings, and direct 'book a demo' CTAs. What single goal should this channel be reassigned?

Google Sheets— Same platform-audit-log.csv, review the 'last 10 post types' column for each high-match platform.

Procedure

Filter the log to the 2 audience-matched platforms (LinkedIn, Reddit)
Categorize each platform's last 10 posts by apparent goal (awareness, traffic, leads, sales)
Assign one dominant goal per platform based on what the audience-match data supports

Sample output

LinkedIn, last 10 posts: 4 product announcements, 3 job postings, 3 demo CTAs (no consistent goal)
Reddit: 0 posts logged (channel unused despite high audience match)

Healthy

LinkedIn gets reassigned a single goal (e.g. leads via thought-leadership content), Reddit gets a documented plan to start posting inside the two active subreddits.

Unhealthy

Leaving LinkedIn's mixed goals as-is because 'it's already doing okay', without noticing the channel has no measurable job.

What this means

A channel with no single assigned goal cannot be measured, and a channel that scores high on audience match but has zero posts is a bigger miss than a slightly underperforming one.

So what do I do about it?

Symptom	Action	Effort
LinkedIn posts alternate between 3 different objectives with no pattern	Assign LinkedIn a single goal (leads) and Reddit a single goal (awareness) before the next planning cycle	30 min

YouYou can do this yourself, no engineering access required.

Step 03 of 03

Confusing reach with relevance

The lesson's Common Mistakes section warns that Facebook's 3.07 billion users is meaningless if your buyer's account is dormant. Always filter raw platform size through actual audience behavior.

The current budget draft allocates 60% of spend to Facebook because it has the most followers. Using the audit log, what's the one-line correction to put in the memo?

Google Sheets— Same platform-audit-log.csv, cross-reference follower count against audience-match score.

Procedure

Pull the follower count and audience-match score side by side for all 6 platforms
Write a one-line finding: which platform has the biggest reach-vs-relevance gap

Sample output

Facebook: 18,400 followers, audience match LOW
Reddit: 2,300 followers, audience match HIGH
Gap: Facebook has 8x the followers but the wrong audience.

Healthy

The memo explicitly states Facebook's follower count should not drive budget allocation given its low audience match.

Unhealthy

The memo repeats the follower counts without connecting them to the audience-match column, leaving the reader to draw the wrong conclusion.

What this means

Every audit needs one sentence that directly contradicts the 'biggest number wins' instinct, or the reader defaults back to it.

So what do I do about it?

Symptom	Action	Effort
Draft budget still favors the highest-follower platform	Add a one-line reach-vs-relevance callout to the top of the memo before it goes to the budget owner	5 min

YouYou can do this yourself, no engineering access required.

Final deliverable

A one-page platform audit memo recommending a 2-platform focus (with rationale), one goal per recommended channel, and a reach-vs-relevance callout.

See a reference example

Sample output

Lenskart social channel audit (excerpt)

RECOMMEND: Instagram (audience match HIGH, goal: traffic to try-on landing page)
RECOMMEND: YouTube (audience match HIGH, goal: awareness via try-on demo videos)
CUT: Facebook (audience match LOW despite 22,000 followers, no clear goal in last 10 posts)

Reach-vs-relevance note: Facebook's follower count is 2.4x Instagram's, but under-30 eyewear buyers are not active there. Budget should follow audience match, not follower count.

Success criteria

You're done when you can:

Correctly identifies the platform(s) with the biggest reach-vs-relevance gap
Assigns exactly one goal to each recommended channel
Recommendation is based on audience-match score, not follower count