How to create a social media report

A social media report is an essential factor in any business’s marketing. It’s all well and good posting blogs, scheduling your content calendar, and sending out holiday messages as part of your latest marketing campaign, but without recording the data around it, how will you know if there was a return on investment (ROI)?

To evaluate the performance of your marketing, and therefore make informed decisions in future, social media reports should be comprehensive and accurate.

For that reason, here we’ll go through why it’s important to track data, which data you should be tracking, and how to report on it.

Before we begin, stop reading after this section.

Go to your individual social media channels to find the data you currently have. You don’t want to start a campaign without knowing how your pages are performing already.

You’ll find these through Instagram’s professional dashboard, Facebook’s Meta, TikTok‘s creator tools and analytics, and LinkedIn’s social selling index.

It’s crucial that you collect your current data before you begin any campaign.

…done it? Let’s continue!

 

Know your goal

The average social media promoter aims to gain more followers, likes and shares for their business. In reality, while these metrics are important, what do they actually mean for your business? Ask yourself why you want to increase likes, shares and follows.

Is your goal actually to increase social media engagement in order to connect with your customers on a more personal level? Or is it that you want to increase your following because it will help your business to gain more partners and suppliers? Could it be that more interaction on your social media channels will boost activity on your website and therefore increase sales figures?

There should always be a more in-depth reason as to why you’re using social media for business. Consequently, your reasons will fuel your content and drive it in the right direction.

Knowing your true goal when it comes to social media will impact your ability to report and analyse your findings. And ultimately, prove a return on investment (ROI).

 

What is a social media report?

With so many different platforms and metrics to consider, it can be tough to know how to measure the success of your campaign. That’s where a social media report comes in.

A social media report is a document that is usually presented on a monthly basis. They should include stats, facts and data on the number of followers and engagement. Additionally, they should include a written evaluation on which tactics did and didn’t work and why. It will also present figures from previous months for comparison.

The purpose of a social media report is to provide an overview of the performance of social media channels for a specific brand or business. The objectives of the report are to identify the strengths and weaknesses of social media campaigns, measure the effectiveness of strategies, and provide recommendations for future improvements.

Reports allow you to spot trends as well but it’s important you don’t carry these out so frequently that there is no data to report on. For the reason, we conduct a report every month so there is a clear set of figures to analyse.

 

Why it’s important to track data

Social media tracking is the best way to get unbiased data about your potential audience and how you can tailor your campaigns to appeal to them better.

When planning a social media campaign, it’s important to know what to expect and how to measure the success of your efforts. You can’t just throw your campaign up on Facebook and see what sticks because you don’t know where your interests coincide with your target market.

Reporting your findings is really important because you can better understand how effective your content strategy is and make changes if needed.

Creating a social media report allows you to evaluate the performance of your social media presence. With this, you’re able to track your campaign’s progress and identify areas for improvement. It will help you measure your ROI and assess how well your content is resonating with your audience.

A social media report should contain data about your social media presence (how many followers you have, how many tweets you get, etc.), data about your social media marketing (what you post, how often, etc.), and data about your business to see if there is any correlation with social media and business growth.

Additionally, tracking social media stats allows marketers to stay up-to-date with industry trends and adjust their strategies accordingly. This ensures that they remain competitive in the marketplace.

Marketers can use the tracked data to determine the best time to post content, which type of content resonates most with their target audience, and how much budget should be allocated for each platform. By understanding these insights, marketers can optimise their campaigns to maximise ROI.

 

Which data to track in a social media report

There is a number of different metrics you can track on social media, but some of the most important ones are engagement, reach, and conversion. Engagement refers to the number of people who are interacting with your content. Reach refers to the number of people who are seeing your content. And conversion refers to the number of people who are taking some desired action, such as signing up for your email list or buying a product.

First, open up an Excel Spreadsheet or a Google Sheet to start collecting figures from your social pages.

 

Your social media report is going to need to include figures on the following:

·       Page reach

·       New page likes

·       Total page likes

·       New page followers

·       Total page followers

·       Page visits

·       Post reach

·       Post engagement

·       Profile visits

·       Story reach

·       Total visits

·       Total reach

·       Total engagement

·       Growth rate*

 

You might also want to add:

·       Ad spend

·       Leads

·       Conversions

·       Total number of posts

·       Number of direct messages

·       Link clicks

·       Competitors’ data

*To calculate the growth rate, take the current month’s number of followers and subtract last month’s. Divide that figure by last month’s figure and then, times by 100.

 

To illustrate, it might look something like this:

 

1,893 (April) – 1,701 (March) = 192

192 / 1,701 = 0.112

0.112 x 100 = 11.2%

 

How to evaluate and analyse your findings

The next step is more about words than numbers. This is where you summarise your key findings including wins, challenges, and opportunities.

Write bullet points on which posts generated the most engagement and the reason behind their success. What kind of content was in these posts? Was it a story or a reel? Was it a picture of your team or a picture of an event? And which platform did these posts perform best on?

The answers will highlight which kinds of audiences are using which kinds of platforms. Therefore, you know where to target them next time. Equally, they’ll reveal industry and social trends. For instance, Instagram reels could be much more engaging to your particular audience, or LinkedIn polls might be the best way to encourage interaction.

Some fluctuations to data are easy to predict. For example, we tend to see social stats drop in the run up to Christmas and during hot summers because people are busier and venture out more during these times.

It’s important to note any hiccups along the way. Was a team member on holiday and you forgot to post? Did this have any impact on your stats? Are figures decreasing in any areas and is this due to your content or due to changes in your audience’s preference?

From here, you’ll have a clearer direction of the opportunities that can follow. Next month, you could experiment with more educational content or more ‘out and about’ content. You could expand on last month’s campaign which went really well. Or you could review your goals to ensure they’re aligning with what you really want to achieve.

 

Reporting your return on investment (ROI)

Finally, you’ll be able to take a closer look at your ROI. You may be getting great stats but it all comes back to that real goal. What are you getting off the back of increasing your following or engagement? Is it helping your sales or bringing in new leads? Has it helped with website traffic or newsletter sign-ups? On the whole, Whether it’s funds or time you’ve put into your social media game, there must be a return on investment of some kind.

 

In conclusion

A social media report is a crucial tool for businesses to evaluate their social media performance and develop strategies to improve it. The report should include engagement metrics, content performance and reach, and a comparison with competitors. In brief, by analysing these metrics, businesses can gain valuable insights into their audience, content, and competition, which can inform their social media strategy and drive better results for the desired ROI.

 

 

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