Social media has become a crucial part of any digital marketing strategy, so it’s essential for you to maximize your social media performance. Driving clicks and bringing engagement only scratches the surface of figuring out what works and what doesn’t.
All-in-one reporting tools like Quintly, Report Garden, and Google Data Studio can help you track and report social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. This can be a handy way to view all your stats together. All-in-one reporting tools are just one of the ways you can create a social media report. However, there are many other ways you can set up a fantastic report for your employees and stakeholders.
7 Steps to creating a social media report
1. Who are your Stakeholders?
It’s essential to establish who will receive your reports. For example, will your sales department be receiving them? Or will it be your marketing, PR, demand gen, senior management, customer support section of your team? Tailor each report to a specific section, as what is important to marketing at customer support won’t be relevant to your sales department.
2. Establish your Goals
If your goal is to achieve more Instagram engagement, you need to figure out what success in that department means for your team. According to Oberlo, one of the first steps to tracking Instagram successes is through the adoption of a business profile. This way, you can see how often specific hashtags are used and what the overall impression of your post is. What do you want from your social media reports? To demonstrate you’ve met business goals? To prove the value of a specific strategy you’re using?
Here are three ways you can track reports:
• Regular Reports – Using key metrics to show progress on social media(increase followers, SOV, positive sentiment, etc.).
• One-Off Reports – If there’s a campaign you’re running, an event or a product launch you can determine what worked for that specific campaign and what might work in the future.
• Research Reports – Listening to your audience as a way to research local trends. Taking advantage of these trends can help with social engagement.
3. Asking SMART Questions
SMART stands for:
• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Relevant
• Time Limited
Asking these questions in regards to your brand can add context to what you’re trying to accomplish. What questions do you want to answer? Depending on what kind of report you’re tracking, this will require a different answer. Keep the SMART questions in mind when presenting your points.
4. Choosing which metrics to track
Not all metrics are created equal, and not all are important. Pay attention to what social network you’re using and what each website metric equates to success on that platform.
Consider the following metrics for your campaigns:
• Leads – Potential Customers
• Conversions – Leads that become customers
• Reach and Impressions – Who saw your post
• Volume – Brand mentions and conversions size
• Engagement – Interaction with content
• Audience – Customer engagement
• Content – What you put on social media
• Click-Through with Bounce Rate – How long website visitors stay
• Share of Voice – Are people talking about you and your brand
• Lessons Learned – Feedback
• Executive Summary – Summary of the best content
5. Picking the Right Social Media Reporting Tool
Picking the right tool may take some trial and error. For this step, set your priorities and goals you wish to achieve before you start investigating potential tools. Ask yourself some SMART questions like:
• How good is their customer support?
• What are the future plans of the reporting tool? Do they meet mine?
• Where do they get their data sources from? How are they used?
• What is the quality of the data being used?
• Do the vendors have a good relationship with the social networks they’re tracking?
6. Select your Reporting Time Frames
I recommend figuring this out every business quarter, or farther ahead if possible. Do you want to have daily reports? Weekly, monthly, or yearly? Will these reports be campaign related? How are you going to track one-off campaigns or seasonal ones?
7. Presenting the Report
Once you receive your first report, you need some way to present it to your team or stakeholders. Your data will likely be a bunch of numbers. Compiling your reports with charts, graphs, maps, descriptions, and colorful lettering will make your data easy to explain visually. Make sure always to show relevant data. Any fluff may be confusing to your stakeholders.
