Find out how to Create a Social Media Report [Free Template]

Social media is likely one of the strongest channels I’ve utilized in my advertising and marketing profession. In actual fact, it’s one of many channels with the very best ROI this 12 months.

I’ve discovered that making a social media report template is a superb place to start out when deciding on what you wish to embrace in your social media technique.

Profitable social media advertising and marketing isn’t a senseless job. Nonetheless, it takes cautious planning and strategizing to have interaction your viewers.

Understanding what to put up, how usually to put up, how a lot to spend money on paid social, and what metrics you need to be measuring are all key elements of a profitable social media technique. Fortunately, all of those components will be tracked in a social media report, so you understand when you’re on the best path.

Learn additional for extra data on social media metrics to incorporate in your report, and use HubSpot’s Free Social Media Reporting Template to get began.

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Desk of Contents

What’s a social media report?

A social media report is a approach for entrepreneurs to investigate and extract knowledge primarily based on how varied social media platforms are performing.

This would possibly embrace measuring metrics similar to followers, profitable clickthrough charges, likes, put up shares, purchases, and extra.

There are two forms of social media advertising and marketing: natural and paid.

Natural social media is free (past worker time) and consists of creating posts, movies, content material, and different engagement efforts.

Paid social media is paid promoting via social media channels and would possibly seem like promoted content material, influencer advertising and marketing, and different social media efforts that price cash and should be budgeted for.

What are the various kinds of social media experiences?

1. Efficiency Report

The sort of reporting is fairly simple. Take every of your social media platforms (Instagram, Fb, LinkedIn, and many others.) and, utilizing the free social media report template, fill out the primary web page that experiences on every owned channel.

You’ll wish to know your viewers for every channel, what number of posts you made, how they carried out (engagement), and what this appears to be like like as a proportion of your complete viewers.

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2. Earned Media

The sort of report (discovered on the second web page of the free template) appears to be like at your attain and impressions.

Every platform may have totally different audiences and metrics to comply with relating to your engagement. The sort of report may give you a greater concept of what your attain presently is and find out how to enhance it.

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3. Key Initiatives and Objectives

It’s not sufficient to simply blindly put up on totally different platforms.

It’s essential to have a transparent concept of the totally different social media campaigns you wish to accomplish on a month-to-month foundation and what engagement you wish to attain for a marketing campaign to be thought-about profitable.

Use HubSpot’s Free Social Media Reporting Template pages 5-26 to fill out:

• Your month-to-month objective for a given social media platform
• Your technique for that platform and key initiatives
• That platform’s alternatives
• Any wins from that platform (ex, most favored put up, most commented put up)

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Why use a social media report?

A social media report is the easiest way to distill the important thing metrics your social media group is monitoring on a every day, weekly, month-to-month, quarterly, and/or annual foundation.

Since social media encompasses a lot, gathering and reporting on the information and channels that you’ve got decided are most essential for your small business offers a lens of focus in your social media advertising and marketing group and delivers a crucial high-level overview for management.

Social media does not simply have an effect on advertising and marketing. Prospects ask questions, clients write critiques, and thought leaders comply with you for firm information.

As a result of social media coincides with almost each side of your group, gathering and distributing the state of your social media channels is a transfer that reveals transparency and encourages cross-company alignment.

It’s also possible to use a social media report back to report on campaign-level analytics. In case your social media account is serving as a cog in a bigger firm initiative, this report reveals to what extent social media contributed to the challenge’s success.

Keep in mind, not each social media platform performs the identical. Right here’s a graph that reveals how entrepreneurs are utilizing platforms and their potential return on funding (ROI).

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HubSpot’s free social media report template has pre-made slides so that you can report on your entire predominant social media metrics.

Obtain the template right now and easily plug in your personal metrics to customise a social media report in your group.

Featured Useful resource: Free Social Media Report Template

Social Media Metrics to Report On

Your online business seemingly values some metrics over others relating to social media reporting.

Probably, these metrics additionally fluctuate between your channels — since LinkedIn doesn‘t let you retweet, and Twitter doesn’t allow you to click on a cry-face button.

Earlier than you begin reporting in your social media channels’ efficiency, learn via this record of choices for social media metrics so you may decide which of them it’s best to embrace in your report.

1. Viewers Measurement and Progress

This metric tells you the way giant your attain is and the way rapidly that attain is rising. That is sometimes seen because the core social media metric, because it reveals how giant of an viewers you may leverage together with your posts and content material.

2. Cadence of Posts

A reasonably self-explanatory instance, this metric represents what number of occasions you posted in a given time interval.

This metric is normally in contrast alongside different metrics — similar to engagement charges — that will help you decide the best cadence in your viewers.

This metric must also be channel-specific as a result of it is sensible to put up extra steadily on some channels than others.

3. Put up Engagement

Put up engagement measures how your followers and followers are reacting to your posts with likes, feedback, and shares. A wholesome put up engagement suggests you might have a loyal viewers — and that your content material is reaching them.

It’s also possible to monitor engagement as a proportion of your viewers to find out engagement fee.

4. Mentions

One metric you might have much less management over is mentions. You possibly can monitor mentions from clients, prospects, and even information shops to gauge the notion of your small business and model on-line.

5. Clickthrough Fee

When a put up hyperlinks to a web page in your web site, you may measure how many individuals and what number of your viewers clicked via to the web page.

A powerful clickthrough fee reveals you are sharing web site pages that your viewers finds related.

6. Conversions & New Contacts

Conversions come into play when you‘re utilizing social media to generate leads, subscribers, and even clients.

If you wish to attribute contacts to your social media group’s efforts, be sure to‘re using proper tracking and setting reasonable goals, as it’s uncommon in some industries to go straight from social media to turning into a buyer.

7. ROI

Straight tracing ROI (return on funding) to social media efforts will be difficult. Nonetheless, when you decide it is price reporting on this metric, be sure to have correct expectations set and attribution fashions established.

8. CPM / CPC

This metric is crucial for monitoring the efficiency of your social media adverts. In the event you’re solely reporting on natural social metrics, you may ignore this one.

9. Competitor Metrics

To supply a benchmark, take into account analyzing the aforementioned metrics in your opponents.

Clearly, these metrics can fluctuate drastically primarily based on publicity, paid funds, and the dimensions of the corporate, however it’s nonetheless worthwhile to make the comparability.

Free Social Media Report Template

Creating your personal social media report from scratch will be difficult.

In the event you want a simple method to begin monitoring essential social media metrics, obtain the free Social Media Report Template and get began.

You possibly can customise the template to suit the precise social media objectives and platforms that you’re partaking in.

Social Media Report Examples

Let’s check out how totally different firms report their social metrics of their social media report.

Coca-Cola

Keyhole did a wonderful job gathering various kinds of reporting that Coca-Cola may embrace in its social media experiences on this weblog. Listed below are some instance photos of various kinds of social media reporting:

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This picture appears to be like at how every Coca-Cola put up carried out over a set period of time. I like this kind of reporting as a result of when you’re engagement by put up, you will get a greater understanding of what forms of posts carry out the most effective.

Don’t neglect that the time of day you put up even impacts how posts carry out.

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This report appears to be like at Coca-Cola’s follower development over a set period of time (on this case, a 12 months). It additionally breaks down put up sorts and their respective engagement.

The sort of evaluation is nice for understanding which put up sorts carry out the most effective and will obtain essentially the most funding out of your advertising and marketing efforts.

Walmart

One other large firm, Walmart, intently watches its social media visitors. Take this report picture from 2023:

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This report appears to be like at various kinds of social media visitors primarily based on platform. You possibly can clearly see that YouTube is their prime social media performer, with Reddit and Fb solely reaching half of YouTube’s engagement.

I like this kind of report as a result of it places into perspective what your share of visitors is for any given platform. If I’m going to spend money on paid social media, I’ll spend money on the platform that’s performing the most effective organically to get extra bang for my buck.

HubSpot

HubSpot’s advertising and marketing dashboard consists of reporting instruments to take a look at every social media channel over time. Take a look at this report:

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I like that this reporting software makes it straightforward to see totally different social media metrics all collectively over totally different platforms and set intervals of time.

You possibly can see how every sort of report follows an analogous curve, supplying you with perception into which months you grew essentially the most and which platforms carried out the most effective.

Find out how to Make a Social Media Report

Step 1: Select your presentation methodology

For consistency and readability, be sure to’re utilizing a social media report presentation, spreadsheet, or memo template.

This manner, every time you replace your metrics, you may merely want to repeat over your latest metrics onto that template reasonably than reinventing the wheel each time.

We advise utilizing a PowerPoint or Google Slide Deck template as a result of you may share it together with your group through e mail, use it for an in-person assembly or presentation, or each.

Want a template to get began? Do that one.

Step 2: Decide the metrics you may be reporting on

As we have established, totally different firms and totally different social media groups worth totally different social media metrics.

It is your job to decide on the metrics that matter most to your group and your group.

Utilizing the record from the part above, slim down the important metrics you imagine are price presenting to your group at giant.

Keep in mind, you may change which metrics you report on for every of your group’s social media platforms.

In case your social media report is campaign-specific, attain out to the challenge stakeholders to see in the event that they’re hoping to see reporting on any sure metrics within the social media report.

Professional tip: On your first few ongoing social media reporting displays, ask your friends which metrics they’d prefer to see or which of them they want clarification on.

Making these adjustments sooner reasonably than later helps you retain your group knowledgeable and engaged.

Step 3: Collect your knowledge

As soon as you understand what you‘re reporting on and how you’re reporting it, it is time to begin gathering knowledge.

Whenever you‘re first setting up your social media reports, create bookmarks for your data sources. Make a folder for the analytics page for each social media channel you’re analyzing and/or your social media reporting software program for an all-encompassing view.

In the event you‘re tracking click-throughs to your website, make sure you’re analyzing from a single grasp location, similar to your monitoring URL builder or your visitors monitoring software like HubSpot or Google Analytics.

Step 4: Add in some visuals

A chart of numbers on a slide deck is, effectively, fairly boring.

Whereas a numerical chart is essential for sharing as a lot information as potential in an organized approach, utilizing visuals is a greater method to convey the expansion and success metrics of your social media efficiency.

Strive incorporating one or all the following into your social media experiences:

• Linear graphs to point out followers over time.
• Pie charts to point out clicks to totally different pages of your web site (weblog pages vs. case research, for instance).
• Bar graphs to point out the variety of engagements on every platform.

These examples are extra eye-catching than numbers on a slide and additional illustrate what you need your group to stroll away with. If knowledge visualization is new to you, take a look at our Information on Information Visualization for Entrepreneurs.

Step 5: Consider your story

A operating social media report ought to at all times remind folks about the place you got here from and the place you intend on going.

That mentioned, be sure that your experiences make reference to how your numbers have modified for the reason that final time frame you introduced, along with why numbers have modified.

Did follower development as a p.c enhance drop final month?

Possibly that is as a result of one in all your posts from the month earlier than went viral and resulted in unprecedented development that was inconceivable to match. Make that clear and add context to the numbers.

Moreover, every report ought to comprise clear motion objects about how you intend to constantly enhance your social media efficiency. Social media is consistently evolving, so your method and technique for it ought to, too.

Leverage Your Social Media Report

All through my years as a marketer, I’ve discovered that nothing works higher than a fantastically filled-out/designed social media report, proven to executives to leverage a much bigger funds and buy-in.

Executives wish to know what advertising and marketing efforts are working and the place they need to make investments extra time and money, and a social media report is the easiest way to exhibit your exhausting work.

Your first report received’t be good, however everybody has to start out someplace. The extra knowledge you enter into your experiences, the extra compelling they are going to develop into.

Now that you know the way to construct, design, and share your social media report, obtain your social media report template and spotlight your social media efficiency.

Editor’s observe: This put up was initially revealed in June 2020 and has been up to date for comprehensiveness.