Tuesday Tip: Create a better social media report

We know the value of an active social media presence for your company for both creating community and generating business. However many times, other people in your organization do not. Sometimes even the social media strategist can forget social media's power there aren't enough tangible results. This week's Tuesday Tip: Create a better social media report that'll help you see the value of your work and provide a more holistic image of your company's social presence.

Photo credit: Unsplash

Raissa Mendes wrote, "How to create an insightful social media report that your boss can digest — Part I" on Medium about a step-by-step process for you to pursue this week. 

1. Set the right criteria

Start with your business' social strategy and goals and then pull out which metrics match those. If the metrics include "Followers, Impression Rate, Engagement, Influencers, Referral Traffic, and Lead Conversion," which ones are most insightful for your team?

If your strategy is to build the top of your funnel, you'll probably be most interested in Followers. If it's to get people to sign up for a special offer, it may be "Engagement" or "Lead Conversion."

2. Establishing a Timeframe

One obstacle many of us run up against is consistency. We may try to run reports every quarter but forget to do one and then two... Sooner than later we're not really tracking things. Set a time to always run and record a report – every 28 days so it's done every month, each Monday, quarterly, etc. Schedule it to repeat on Google calendar or which ever notification system you use.

3. Determine which type of progress and growth you will measure

Options include:

• "Comparative: How have we grown from a previous point in time."
• "Actuality: What is our presence like on ____?"
  
• "Campaign Based: How is this campaign performing?"

Read Raissa's full piece here or check out Part II, "How to create an insightful social media report that your boss can digest."

If you're low on time and would like a consistent report sent to you, contact our team at ArcStone. If you're looking for ways to run these reports yourself, we've used Twitter Analytics and Facebook Insights. Buffer also wrote "19 Free Social Media Analytics Tools."