If you’ve taken the trouble of planning and delivering a well-crafted and slick social media marketing campaign, don’t you want to know how it’s performing? Do you want to know what’s working, and what isn’t?
Social media reporting might not be the most exciting task in the world, but it’s essential to help you and your team track and analyze your digital marketing performance.
Furthermore, social media reporting is a fantastic way to show other people in your organization (yes, your Bosses) the value of your work and, most importantly, having the data to back it up.
What Is A Social Media Report?
A social media report presents the data and activity from your organization’s social media channels. It could include information on the number of likes, followers and comments that your platforms have received, and how well your posts are performing in terms of engagement. ¹ This data can be drawn from social media reporting tools like ReportGarden.
A social media report could simply be a spreadsheet with a list of numbers, or it could be a fancy slide-show presentation, full of in-depth analysis of your social media stats, with visual aids like vibrant graphs and charts. ²
The overall look and feel of a social media report will depend on the audience it’s intended for. If it’s only for the eyes of your team to keep track of your progress internally, it might be comprehensive and in-depth. But if it’s being presented to senior management at a board meeting, you may only need top-level information.
Why Is Social Media Reporting Important?
We all know that reports can be a bit dull but avoid doing them at your peril. There’s no point in creating stunning social media campaigns if you don’t then find out what all your hard work has accomplished.
A social media report can show you what’s working for your organization, but also what isn’t. This allows you to target your efforts where you’ll get the most bang for your buck. Social media analytics show you which content format is performing better than others, so you’ll know where you should focus your endeavors.
Putting out great content is pointless if no-one sees it. Social media reporting gives you detailed information on when your target audience is looking at your content. This will help you schedule your content perfectly to ensure it hits the mark with your audience. ³
A great deal of investment goes into marketing, and that includes social media. Social media reporting allows you to show your stakeholders what you’ve accomplished. This will not only keep your bosses happy, but it might even help you secure further resources in the future!
What Should Be Included In A Social Media Report?
Whether you’re producing your social media report on a weekly, monthly or yearly basis, it should be clear and in a format that’s easy to digest. It should include all the relevant insights into your activity for the timeframe you’re covering, many of which social media reporting tools will be able to provide ⁴
Overview Of Social Media Marketing Strategy
It’s a good idea to start your social media report with a brief overview of your social media strategy. This will help your readers understand the purpose of the report and what it will contain. This is particularly beneficial if the report is intended for those outside your team, or those who don’t have a background in social media marketing.
This is your opportunity to show how your activities align with the overarching business strategy for social media, and how your work is meeting the objectives outlined in the strategy. This is also a good place to mention any changes in strategy since your last report, such as the acquisition of a new channel or a change in direction to support a specific need of your organization. ⁵
Goals
Your social media activities are all about reaching goals, whether it’s increasing engagement or extending your reach, so include these in your social media reporting.
Using the principle of setting SMART goals is an excellent way to focus on what you want to achieve and how you will do it. Consider setting out your goals as follows:
- Specific. Decide what methods you will use to reach your goals, for example, user-generated campaigns or Facebook ads.
- Measurable. Make sure you can measure your goals with evidence, like the number of followers.
- Achievable. It’s fine to be ambitious but be sure that your goals are achievable with the resources and budget you have.
- Realistic. Ensure your goals are realistic or you’ll be setting yourself up to fail.
- Timely. Your goals should have a realistic timeframe for when they will be achieved. ⁶
Success Metrics
Now that you’ve outlined your goals, you need to decide what data to include in your report that best demonstrates how you’re achieving those goals. These are known as success metrics.
The social media analytics you choose to present in your social media report will depend on your specific objectives. For instance, if one of your goals is to build brand visibility and traffic, you should include metrics around tracking reach, views, brand mentions, shares and inbound traffic. ⁷
Other key metrics that you could include in your social media report are:
Conversions. The number of users who have completed an action with your organization which originated from social media. Conversions could include making a purchase, registering on a website, completing a questionnaire or signing up for a newsletter. This metric is important if you’re looking to track ROI. ⁸
New Followers. The number of followers you have doesn’t dictate the success or failure of a campaign, but it’s always a number you should be looking to increase. It shows that your audience is growing, meaning more people are seeing your content.
Engagement. The number of likes, shares and comments you’re receiving is a good indicator of how engaged your audience is. Increasing engagement shows that your activities are going down well with your audience. ⁹
Click-through Rate (CTR). Expressed as a percentage, the CTR shows how many people have viewed a social media post and clicked through to read more, purchase one of your products or take some other form of action. The CTR shows how well your content drives people to your organization’s web properties. ¹⁰
Volume of posts. This tells you how much content you’re producing across the timeframe of your social media report. It will give you an idea of whether your posting rate is sustainable, as well as insight into how much content you need to produce to generate positive results. ¹¹
Reach. This metric refers to the potential unique viewers your posts could have. Growing your reach should equate to expanding your audience, ensuring even more people see your content. ¹²
Social traffic. The number of unique visitors to your website or apps from social media platforms. For example, someone clicking on your tweet or Facebook post and then arriving on your organization’s website will be counted as social traffic. ¹³
This is not an exhaustive list - if you want to find out more about the metrics that are most important for businesses, read our blog on business metrics derived from social media analytics.
Results Per Network
Next, you should provide specific results for each individual social network, for example, Twitter, to show how each one is performing. Doing this will also give insight into what content works best on individual channels, so you can tailor your efforts accordingly.
Again, the specific data you choose to include in your report will depend on your own goals and success metrics. The most common figures to include for each social network are:
- Number of posts
- Engagement rate
- Click-through rate
- Net followers gain or loss
- Top-performing post(s) ¹⁴
Visual aids like graphs and infographics are a great tool to represent these metrics. In ReportGarden we create all these for you - all you have to do is click ADD WIDGET, choose your asset from our selection of data widgets and drop it into your report..
ReportGarden allows you to pull social media analytics from all your platforms, including Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and more. You can also find a huge range of social media report examples on the platform to help you build your own report.
Wins
Focus on the data that shows successes, such as an increase in engagement, traffic, and conversions. Ensure to explain why it's a success and how it helps you achieve your SMART goals.
This is your chance to go beyond the numbers and highlight any other wins, like an exceptional customer review, making initial contact with a key influencer. ¹⁵ These details will add color to your report and show your readers how your hard work is making a real impact.
Opportunities
Here you can include information around what your audience is focusing on, whether it be a particular content format, trend or topic. ¹⁶ Even if it’s from one of your competitors, it’s worth highlighting and even detailing how you will jump on the opportunity and use it to your advantage. Your readers might not be aware of this kind of information, so it’s your chance to showcase your expertise in this area.
Sometimes, things don’t go to plan, and it’s totally reasonable to address these shortcomings in your report. If something hasn’t gone quite as you’d hoped, it’s fine to say so, but be sure to include what you’re going to do to get back on track. ¹⁷
Summary
Bring your report to an end with a concise summary of what you’ve achieved and what you’ve learnt over the timeframe of your social media report. Draw attention to the key features of the report, and how you’ll use them to guide your social media strategy going forward. ¹⁸
Social Media Reporting In ReportGarden
You now know what to include in a social media report, but how do you create your report? That’s where ReportGarden makes it easy. Everything you need, to create unique, informative and professional reports is right at your fingertips.
ReportGarden allows you to gather data from all your social media platforms and create attractive reports to showcase your work. The reports are completely customizable, so you can include the metrics that matter to you and your organization.
You’ll have access to eye-catching graphs, charts and infographics to bring your report to life. You can then download your finished social media report or email it directly to the rest of your team.
Here’s how to create a social media report in ReportGarden.
1. Log in to your ReportGarden dashboard
2. Click on REPORTS
3. Click on NEW REPORT
4. Choose from one of our custom social media report examples
5. Link the account you want to pull the social media analytics you want to report on
6. Use our wide range of widgets to build your own unique report
Final Thoughts
Social media reporting is an essential activity that helps you track the progress of your social media campaigns and report on your key achievements. It also helps you demonstrate your value to your organization in terms of brand awareness and ROI, putting you in a position to share your expert knowledge and offer your stakeholders valuable and well-informed insight.
ReportGarden makes creating your social media reporting a breeze. From pulling in the data you need, to letting you create stunning social media analytics reports, everything you need to showcase your work can be found on one dashboard. Try ReportGarden for yourself and start your 14-day free trial now.
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