When you talk about SWOT analysis, sirens go off.

Just like SWAT, SWOT analysis polices the internal and external environment of your social networks.

This analysis tool has been used by millions of professionals since the 1960s. And in this article, you will learn how you can adapt it for your social media.

Here is your navigation menu:

• What is a SWOT analysis?
• When should you do a SWOT analysis?
• What data do you need for a SWOT analysis?
• How to do a SWOT analysis for social media?

What is a SWOT analysis?

A SWOT analysis is an analysis tool that allows you to understand your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

This analysis gives you an understanding of the internal and external factors affecting your business, allowing you to make better strategic decisions.

When applied to the social media context, the intent is the same.

A SWOT analysis for your social media is divided into 4 points:

Internal Factors (that the company can control)

• Strengths: This is where you put what you are doing well, and the advantages and points of differentiation that your company has. (ex: We are the brand with the highest notoriety in the country; we have a differentiating tone of voice, among others)

• Weakness: Where is your company failing? Internally, what is stopping you from growing or achieving goals? (e.g. Small budget, few social media team members, among others).
  External Factors (that the company cannot control)

• Opportunities: What are the external factors that can be an opportunity for your company? (ex: A new social network where you can be an early adopter, an online event that you can sponsor, among others)

• Threats: Here you should put external factors that you cannot control and that can harm your business (e.g. new consumer preferences, competitors copying your campaigns, and increased online advertising costs, among others).

When should you do a SWOT analysis?

There are a few key moments when you should consider doing a SWOT analysis.

Setting objectives

Whenever you set new goals, whether quarterly or annual, you should look to conduct a SWOT analysis.

With an internal and external overview of your company, you will be able to set more realistic goals, as well as allocate company resources more optimally.

Defining your brand strategy

A SWOT analysis will help you build a brand based on your company’s strengths to create a coherent strategy that builds customer loyalty to your brand.

Responding to changes in the market

Especially in the digital and social media landscape, something that is today, tomorrow may no longer be the same.

The launch of a new tool, feature or social network can change the entire competitive landscape of your business and social media. Literally overnight (think of the impact the launch of ChatGPT had on the creative industry).

This is why it is important to be aware of market changes, and to do a SWOT analysis whenever a significant novelty for your industry emerges.

Big campaigns

If you’ve run a Christmas or Black Friday campaign, you’ll probably want to know where your company stands after that campaign.

The same applies to the process leading up to the creation of a major campaign.

A SWOT analysis is decisive for gaining insights into what to communicate, what product to promote, and on which channels to do it.

What data do you need for a SWOT analysis?

As you can already see, you will need to collect this internal and external data

To collect internal data, you can audit your social media.

For external data, you will need to look at your competitors and benchmark them on social media.

After the audit and benchmark, you will have enough information to move on to the next step.

How to do a SWOT analysis for social media?

Strengths

As mentioned above, this is where you will list your strengths, according to the data you collected in your audit.

But beyond the numbers, you can evaluate qualitative factors, such as the consistency of your designs, the creativity in your copies, the tone of voice of your brand, and your color palette, among others.

In the case of Swonkie, for example, one of the strengths is the consistency in the branding of our publications.

This is considered a strength, as consistency of colors and designs increases brand awareness in the consumer’s mind.

This naturally has advantages, such as being the top-of-mind consumer brand for your industry. As a result, at the point of purchase, the likelihood of your brand being chosen becomes greater.

Just do this exercise:

Think of a red soft drink brand.

The answer is almost certainly Coca-Cola

Here is an example of Swonkie’s profile, with color and design consistency:

If you are struggling to identify strengths, you can guide yourself with the following questions:

• Which platforms am I most active on?
• Which are the platforms where I have the most engagement?
• Do I have a strong community?
• How often do I interact with my community?
• Do I have an innovative content segment in the market?
• Do I have an online event or initiative that others don’t have?
• How is my brand’s creativity and communication compared to others?
• How is my publishing consistent?

Weaknesses

Uh oh… you will need to look in the mirror and identify your weaknesses.

The process is similar to what you just did for your strengths.

Look back at your numbers collected in the audit, and try to figure out in which social networks you have less engagement, growth, and followers, among other factors.

Note that you should be as specific as you can about your weaknesses. If you are behind your competitors, specify in what. In followers? Interactions? Frequency of posts?

This data can be collected through Swonkie’s reports, which give you an overview of your metrics per social media profile.

On the other hand, you can also find several of your weak points through what your customers say about your brand on social media.

A social listening tool will be essential to understand this feedback.

If you are struggling to identify weaknesses, you can be guided by the following questions:

• Do I have a defined content strategy for each of my social networks?
• Does my content show the people behind the brand?
• Do I have a plan for crisis management on your social media?
• Which channels or content formats am I not yet exploring?
• What is my response time to comments or messages?
• Is my tone of voice consistent across all my social media profiles?

Opportunities

Opportunities are part of the factors outside your company – which means you should make sure you look for changes, not only in your industry and country, but outside of them.

You can and should listen to what your consumers are talking about, as this is where you can often pick up on new needs, trends and even suggestions for improvement.

There are other ways to stay on top of social media news, such as following our “What’s Happening on Social Media” segment on our Instagram.

If you are struggling to identify opportunities, you can be guided by the following questions:

• Are there influencers to partner with my brand on my social media?
• How can I collect more user-generated content?
• Can I participate in collaborative posts with other brands?
• Are there any content trends I can participate in?What social media platforms are my competitors exploring?
• What have my customers been saying about my brand lately?

Threats

In the world of social media, threats can be difficult to predict and identify, especially with the speed at which all the information and changes occur.

Take the speed of Twitter’s rebranding to X as an example. In less than 24 hours a new logo was created and the Twitter brand was gone forever (at least as long as Elon Musk is CEO *laughs*).

That said, some of the most common threats on social media are:

• The constant changes in algorithms
• Fake accounts

• Social media crisis

• Changing data policy regulations

Among others.

Our tip when it comes to defining threats is: don’t overemphasize them, but give them due importance. Many of them are out of your control.

You shouldn’t be constantly worrying about the latest algorithm changes and how it might affect your content. You should be concerned with creating the best content for your audience and adjusting it where necessary.

Ultimately, the message we want to get across is: Have plans and processes in place to deal with the most significant threats and adapt your day-to-day to deal with the less significant threats.

If you are struggling to identify opportunities, you can be guided by the following questions:

• How will the algorithm changes affect my content strategy and workflow?
• Do my competitors have an established community?
• Do I have partnerships with influencers? If so, how likely are they to get involved in controversy or trigger a crisis?
• How secure is my social media? Do I have 2-step authentication enabled?
• Are my competitors starting any initiatives or efforts on a particular social network?

In short, to perform a SWOT analysis for your social media you will need data both internal and external to your company.

To do this, you can conduct an audit of your social media for internal data, and benchmark your competition for external data.

Once you have this data, you can set about identifying your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. And if you are having trouble identifying each of these points, you can be guided by the questions we leave at the end of each point.