To audit cross-channel social ROI, score every platform on the same five columns and compare them per hour of effort, not by raw totals. The columns are hours spent, engagement versus a benchmark, link clicks, outcomes and a decision. The whole audit takes about 90 minutes and ends with one platform to fix and one to stop.
TLDR: Build a table with one row per platform and five columns: effort, engagement vs benchmark, clicks, outcomes, decision. A platform with high engagement but zero outcomes is a fix. A platform with low effort and steady outcomes is a keep.
Column 1 and 2: effort and engagement against a real benchmark
Effort is hours per month, including making, posting and replying. Estimate it from your calendar. If you don't know, you have found problem number one.
Engagement only means something against a benchmark, because platforms behave differently. In Mydrop's September 2026 data, the median engagement rate per post was 3.08% on Instagram, 2.98% on TikTok and 1.11% on Facebook. Pinterest (5.26%) and YouTube (3.85%) are directional, so read them as hints.
Use ratios, not raw rates: divide your median by the benchmark. 1.0 means typical. 0.5 means half as engaging as normal. A 1.1% rate is poor on Instagram and fine on Facebook.
Column 3 and 4: clicks and outcomes
Engagement is a reaction. Business results come from the next two columns:
- Link clicks: use UTM tags on every link so analytics can separate platforms. Without tags, social traffic often shows up as "direct".
- Outcomes: leads, signups or sales from those clicks, taken from your analytics or CRM.
Now compute outcomes per 10 hours of effort. A platform with 4 leads from 5 hours beats a platform with 6 leads from 40 hours, even though its total is smaller.
A four-platform scorecard with sample numbers
Here is the shape. The numbers are placeholders, replace them with yours.
| Platform | Hours / month | Engagement vs benchmark | Clicks | Outcomes | Outcomes per 10 h | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 1.2x | 310 | 8 | 4.0 | Keep | |
| TikTok | 25 | 0.6x | 90 | 1 | 0.4 | Fix |
| 6 | 0.9x | 120 | 5 | 8.3 | Keep, add time | |
| 10 | 0.4x | 20 | 0 | 0 | Cut or merge |
Read each row for a story, not only a verdict. In the example, LinkedIn has the best return per hour on the least effort, so it earns more hours. TikTok has heavy effort and weak results, so the question is whether the content or the audience is wrong.
Column 5: the keep, fix or cut call
Use simple rules and write them down before you look at the numbers:
- Keep: at or above benchmark and outcomes per hour above your median. Protect its time.
- Fix: engagement fine but clicks or outcomes weak. Change the call to action, the landing page or the topic, then re-score in 30 days.
- Cut or merge: below 0.5x benchmark with no outcomes after 90 days of honest effort. Stop daily posting and repurpose the best content elsewhere.
Be careful with outcomes you cannot see. Dark social, such as links shared in DMs, often hides real results. Ask new customers how they found you before cutting a quiet platform.
Collect the data without opening nine dashboards
Gathering the numbers is the slow part. In Mydrop, the performance view compares every connected account against its own median in one table, and social media reports can export the result as a PDF you attach to the audit. Platform-native metrics, such as YouTube watch time or Pinterest saves, stay available per account if a row needs more detail.
Run the scorecard this week and move one block of hours
Fill in the table for the last 90 days. Choose one platform to fix and one to reduce, and move the saved hours to your best performer. Put a date in your calendar 30 days out to score again.
For a quicker first pass, try the 10-minute engagement-to-ROI audit, or see all platforms side by side in Mydrop.
Google review
Trustpilot review
Product Hunt comment
