If you are working with a digital marketing agency (in Dubai or elsewhere) who is managing your social media accounts, you will want to receive regular social media reports to make sure the digital strategy is hitting home. Likewise, if you are looking to make your report, you should keep some basics in mind to make sure you get useful results that can help you optimize the way you are approaching your social media marketing.

A good report needs to be user-friendly and clear, with intelligently selected data comparisons and hard facts. 

What to include in your social media report

This depends on your goals. Are you just evaluating a success of a specific social media ad campaign, or a Facebook/Instagram promotion, or are you looking for results that span over a longer amount of time (e.g. monthly) and showcase the success of your posts and activities, anything from organic impact to boosts?

Either way, there are some things to be mindful of when creating or evaluating a social media report.

Compartmentalize

Start with a brief introduction laying out your goals and objectives. Move on to covering different platforms, from general data to more post- or campaign-specific. Include summaries to conclude each section and outline some key take-outs that will help you improve the social media strategy for months ahead.

Whether you are doing this for your team or a client, making the report easy on the reader is a way to go.

Include key data & provide context

A social media report essentially all about numbers, but to make them truly effective it is always good to use comparisons to provide context. 100 viewers can be a huge thing if previously you only got 5. Or it can be a big let-down and a sign that your content fell flat on your audience. Good data tracking means creating a context to which each new piece of the data will keep adding on, perfecting your strategy bit by bit.

Here is some data that should not be left out (some of it is platform-dependent):

Posts/time frame

Followers gained/lost

Post reach

Impressions

Top performing posts

Number of engagements (likes, comments and shares)

Clicks (on post link, page or website)

Profile views (and through desktop or mobile)

Views – of videos or stories

Analyze your audience

Know who it is you’re reaching out to and see whether your followers match your target audience. For example, if your posts are really popular among European teenagers, but your company is offering services for Dubai-based seniors, perhaps it is time to rethink your social media content. 

Be mindful of gender, age and location of your followers. Then you can see whether you are reaching the right people and continue expanding, or whether you need to adapt your content to get through to some of the underrepresented target audience. 

Second, monitor your audience’s behaviours. Social media platforms, be it Facebook, Linkedin, Instagram or other will allow you to see when your audience is most active. That way you can schedule your posts to be sent during days and hours that are most likely to get your message seen. Also, your followers are representatives of their demographics so if you are already talking to the right people, then by accommodating their preferences you will end up expanding your reach within the group.

Don’t complicate

Your busy clients and coworkers already feel overwhelmed with work, so when they see a sheet packed with cold, hard data they are likely to just shut it out. Make your report easy to follow. Highlight some key achievements. Take out irrelevant data. Rank the popularity of content. Underline key conclusions. Show data visually. 

It helps if you are clear about the main information you took out from the report so that you can focus the narrative on getting the point across.

Don’t forget your objective

In the end, companies invest in social media management with clear business goals in mind – to increase brand awareness, to sell a product, to promote a service… when framing your results, the main thing the readers will take out is how they further these objectives. 

Always keep in mind who is the one reading the report. Some readers will want it simplified, more analytical ones will want a lot of flesh. If you are talking to your team you might want to be a bit more informal and blunt. If writing for a client you want to be helpful.

Give everyone what they’re looking for (and if you are the client, don’t hesitate to demand your social media agency to accommodate your company’s needs.)

Use social media reporting tools to help you

Each platform has its ways to report. For example, Facebook insights allow you to export data in the format that suits you. Instagram normally only shows weekly reports so be mindful of that. Twitter Analytics will provide you with key data, but require some deeper search into Tweets or Audiences which too can be exported. Linkedin will give you great metrics, as well as show how you rank among your competition.

To save yourself some time going on each platform and extracting all the insights, taking screenshots, typing it down or sending several reports, you can use a social media reporting tool that allows you to collect data for multiple profiles from one dashboard. There are several good tools for this, you just have to find one that you find intuitive and customize the dashboard to your liking. 

Or better yet, work with a reputable social media marketing company in Dubai and have them take the weight off your shoulders. If you find their reports confusing or lacking, move on to a better option. 

Conclusion

Get in touch with Dubai’s top digital marketing agency today to start the discussion about your requirements and get their recommendations. Good social media reporting will not only help you get the most from your digital efforts but will also provide you with priceless information about your target audiences.