Some marketers do it on a daily basis, others avoid it as much as they can. What are we talking about? It is all about social media analytics. It is not that easy to analyse your performance, especially if you have never befriended numbers. Analysing all of the social media metrics can be tricky and even difficult in some places, but you should not give up. You can really fall in love with numbers and make them deliver results for your social media communication. What should you know about social media reporting, and how to make this process just a bit easier for you? We’ve prepared a short guide that you can follow. 

Set up KPI for social media reporting

One of the most common mistakes that marketers do make is… a lack of KPIs in their social media reporting. What are KPIs? KPIs stand for Key Performance Indicators and they basically tell you… how you are doing. You need to pair KPIs with your business goals. If your goal is to increase brand awareness, then it is wise to look at engagement rates or reach. If you want to sell more, then the metrics that should matter to you are Cost Per Click or Cost Per Sale. Are you using social media for lead generation? Well, Cost Per Lead is the one to look at. Social media reporting software can help you keep these metrics on track. You should always choose KPIs that can help you achieve your business goals quickly and in the most efficient way. You should not look at some vanity metrics like the number of followers, for example. There are many social media reporting templates that you can follow, and all of them should include KPIs. 

Monitor on a daily basis

This is another mistake that we could add to the list of those made by many social media marketers all around the world. Even if they do use social media reporting software already, they tend to check it only from time to time instead of doing it regularly, even on a daily basis. Some results won’t change overnight, but in the case of a more sensitive, more dynamic campaign, it can be a matter of hours to optimize your performance. It is especially crucial when it comes to social media reporting for agencies. They need to analyze the performance of many clients and many profiles at the same time, so having a set of reliable social media reporting tools (e.g. napoleoncat.com/features/report/) is really important and can save a lot of time for the agency. Speaking of saving, it applies also to money. If the agency knows that some activities are more efficient and beneficial than others, then some of the financial resources can be transferred and therefore be spent in a wiser way. It is not that easy to come to this conclusion if you do not care about social media reporting, or if the tools that you have been using are not really trusted ones and do not deliver enough analytics. 

Compile reports

The best thing about social media reporting tools is that they show data in a really pleasant, pretty way. It is simply easier to create reports out of advanced, easy to read and understandable analytics that are available in a particular tool. Some of the reports are even so comprehensive that there is no need to interfere with them, and you can send such reports to your clients directly. Social media reporting is about keeping an eye on analytics, but at the end of the day your clients want to see reports that they can analyze and read without any further descriptions or explanations that waste their time. This is why choosing good social media reporting software is so crucial for agencies, but also for freelancers who work with clients directly or marketers who treat social media as their side gig. 

To wrap-up

You don’t have to be scared of numbers! It is not that easy to analyze some statistics at first, and to make some conclusions, but you should definitely start doing it if you care about your own performance in social media management. Even single conclusions are better than none, and your clients happily welcome any insights. What are you waiting for?