2 Problems Solved by Social Media Reporting
First Problem
Social media reporting helps you understand in detail what’s working and what isn’t within the social media channels that you are active in. It allows you to get as granular as you like with the data that you have. You can take a high-level look at everything to get a sense of what channels are working (as an example).
Or, you can do a deep dive to not only learn what channels are most active, but the kinds of posts that work best, the time of day where your posts get the most engagement, and even the kinds of images or videos are working best (assuming you’re not getting more out of text-only posts).
Second Problem
It is clearing away the noise of data and providing a clear view of the ROI from social media marketing. This is critical because it’s entirely too easy to get lost in all the metrics that we have on social media. People get caught up in numbers that seem great, but don’t seem to generate any additional value for the company. Good social media reporting helps cut through the clutter and puts the value front and center–something that is invaluable in B2B marketing, especially.
A good social media report should be concise and easy to digest. You want to showcase:
- A measurement of success.
- What’s working.
- What isn’t working.
- Where it’s working.
- How much value it’s bringing to the company.
Ideally, you break this down for each social media channel that you’re active on since different tactics are going to yield different results across the various channels. You need to balance the findings against clearly defined goals. Getting 1 million likes is great. But if your goal is to increase sales and those 1 million likes don’t lead to sales, it’s suddenly not as impressive. If you don’t follow up on your data and provide visibility into social media ROI (as mentioned in the fourth point), you risk losing all the work you’ve done to establish the program.
The more you can rely on visuals in these reports, the better. Charts are going to hold more meaning for people than a spreadsheet full of numbers. You want people to understand your reports as quickly as possible.
Without Social Media Reporting
Without effective social media reporting, the resources spent on collecting and analyzing data are wasted. Sure, you can create a social media report in a spreadsheet or tables in a document, but it takes precious time. Why waste it when you can automate most social media reporting tasks with one (or more) of the tools chosen for you?
It’s worth noting that most analytics solutions offer some form of reporting, but if you’re looking for a tool that specializes in insightful reporting features, you should check out our list.
Top 10 social media reporting tools
DashThis
It is not a social media analytics solution per se. It is a dashboarding solution. However, it is perfect for agencies, marketing teams, and small businesses across a variety of industries who have small budgets and are looking for a white-labeled option. DashThis does a really good job of producing visually appealing reports that are easy to follow.
Website: https://dashthis.com/
Pricing: Business plans start at $209/mo.
Oktopost
Oktopost specializes in B2B social with an emphasis on employee brand advocacy, social lead generation, and large datasets. Integrating with all social platforms is quick and easy while also highly customizable. With Oktopost, you can provide visibility into how social media is, directly and indirectly, impacting your sales pipeline (the Oktopost ROI calculator is a great example of this). Oktopost’s brand advocacy feature allows employees to amplify the reach of company social media, adding an extra level of value for customers.
Website: http://oktopost.com/
Pricing: customized pricing.
Whatagraph
similarly like DashThis, Whatagraph is not an expert in social media analytics, but it is an offering. Whatagraph is a robust reporting tool for larger agencies and businesses. It gives users the ability to bring in data from various sources and presents it in a way that clearly explains the successes and value of social media efforts.
Website: https://whatagraph.com/
Pricing: pricing for Whatagraph starts at $99/mo for a one-person team and $239/mo for larger teams.
Keyhole.co
Keyhole offers large agencies and B2C enterprises everything they need to successfully report on social media. Keyhole is particularly for companies that use influencer marketing as a part of their strategy. It has one of the best hashtag tracking tools out there, making it excellent for social listening. Keyhole
Website: https://keyhole.co/social-media-reporting/
Pricing: Starts from $99/mo for mid-sized businesses and goes up to $999 for enterprise-level customers.
Klips (by Kilpfolio)
Considered one of the best custom report builders and designer tools, Klips offers a reporting suite and a full range of data sources. Klips lets you create highly customized reports for clients. Klips is great for agencies or teams that have the time and resources to build custom dashboards.
Website: https://www.klipfolio.com/klips-reporting
Pricing: starts at $29/mo for teams of 5 or less.
Napoleon Cat
Great for eCommerce, small businesses, and agencies, Napoleon Cat provides a high-quality tool for social media reporting, planning, and moderating. What’s nice about Napoleon Cat is you can use it to track the performance of individual community moderators to gain a deep understanding of who’s adding the most value to your social media efforts.
Website: https://napoleoncat.com/features/report/
Pricing: starting at $27/mo.
Kontentino
Kontentino is great for smaller businesses and teams that are looking to streamline their social media workflow. It allows for highly focused reporting that takes things one step further by letting you assign a KPI to measure specific goals against your social budget, giving you a clear view of whether you’re meeting your goals.
Website: https://www.kontentino.com/insights-and-reporting
Pricing: starts at 99€/mo.
Swydo
Swydo helps marketing agencies and business owners to easily create detailed social media reports. They offer a wide range of pre-built reports to help you get started fast, without having to create new reports from scratch every time.
Website: https://www.swydo.com/
Pricing: Plans starting at $75/mo.
Socialinsider
Socialinsider gives you the ability to focus on competitive benchmarking to gain deeper insights into how your social media campaigns compare to your closest competitors. You can also go pretty deep into your analytics, covering several years’ worth of data if you want.
Website: https://www.socialinsider.io/
Pricing: starts at $49/mo for social media managers and $83/mo for agencies.
Social Bakers
It offers a complete all-in-one setup for all sizes companies. It lets you do everything from tracking benchmarks to ROI attribution.
Website: https://www.socialbakers.com/solution/measurement-and-reporting
Pricing: all-in-one suite starts at $200/mo.