Part 2: 6 Steps to Create a Stellar Report
This blog focuses on a year-end report to see what worked and what didn’t for the past year, but you don’t have to wait to check your insights. You can and should do it often. Your insights will help you understand patterns in content reach.
For example, if your account uses a lot of photos, but not videos (or reels), you might find that if you use a reel it performs better than your photos. Another example might be that your account is fairly new, and your content begins to perform well when you tag another business. Your insights reflect a high reach on those specific posts. What’s the information you can gather from that? Is it your beautiful and catchy content? Perhaps. More likely, it might be that your reach grew when you tagged your next-door business neighbors because they have a greater following than you do.
Let’s look at the steps to create a social media report for your small business. We will walk through the process together with one of our clients. Personal business information will be kept private.
1. List all the social media channels currently used by the business.
2. Check the insights or analytics pages for each channel individually.
3. Track relevant metrics (demographics, follower count, follower growth, engagement rate, impressions, reach, leads generated, revenue generated, dollars spent, ROI)
4. Gather data.
5. Reflect on the data.
6. Compile the data and write the report.
List all channels currently used by the business.
For this example, our client uses only Facebook and Instagram for all current social media campaigns.
Check the insights or analytics pages for each channel individually.
Inside the Meta Business Suite, click on the left bank of icons “Insights” which is labeled like Instagram. The first screen that pops up will be a “week in review” providing a glance at insights from the past week. Click out of this or click “View All Insights” to see more information.
For a year review, set the date range to 01/01/2023-12/31/2023 or whatever day you complete this exercise.
For the year you will see overall Facebook reach, Instagram reach, and paid reach. Our client does not currently do any paid reach (despite what Meta makes people think, you don’t have to), and so our example number is zero. Here are points to notice:
Notice numbers that are going up or down significantly.
Notice the suggestions for growing reach. (Advertisements will always be a suggestion.)
Notice suggestions about types of posts – timeline posts versus stories.
Two points noticed quickly include Facebook's overall reach is down 20% from the previous year, but Instagram's reach is up 9% over the previous year. For this size of business, it’s still a good reach overall. Digging deeper to determine why it’s down or up is important.
Story shares on Facebook are lower than the previous year.
Story reactions, replies, and shares are also down.
We can deduce that lower use of Facebook stories is likely the biggest reason our Facebook reach is down. We can also recommend adjusting that accordingly by sharing stories consistently.
While Instagram reach is up, we also notice that published posts are down .6% and published stories are down 40% even though the reach is up overall. That means our content is gaining traction on Instagram, but better use of stories is necessary.
Likes, comments, and shares are also down 30%, so in content creation, engagement needs to be the focus for the first 90 days of 2024.
In the Meta Business Suite, there is always a suggestion of paid ads as a way to boost your reach, engagement, and page likes. Meta ads are a tool in the toolbox that can be used when necessary. When organic growth is the goal, we focus our attention on driving quality content and consistent posting over paid advertising. Paid advertising does produce results, but organic growth will always have longer staying power.
Now scroll to Audience. You will find lots of valuable information here.
Click on the audience report for more detailed information.
Page likes are presented for Facebook and Instagram.
The audience report shows the percentage of men or women followers, the percentage of age ranges for followers, and the cities where most people follow.
Scroll and see the main countries.
Our client has 3,995 followers on Facebook and 2,849 followers on Instagram. Each platform attracts about 67-68% female followers and 31-32% male followers. The age demographics are fairly even on both platforms with the highest age range being 35-44 for both. Dallas, Texas is home to the most followers at 17 and 22% with Fort Worth coming in second place, but not closely at 2 and 4%.
Return to the main Insights page and you will see “Content Overview.”
You may need to reset your date range again if it doesn’t hold your previous selection. Click on “Content Performance” to see more in-depth information related to specific content and specific content types.
First to note is that there are 4 tabs across the top for Facebook posts, stories, Instagram posts, and stories. You will need to look at each tab.
Facebook post reach is up 210% over the last 90 days specifically. Our client was recently featured on an international Latin restaurant show so that huge jump is not surprising. The show and the host posted several clips tagging the client so the reach naturally is higher.
The bottom of the page shows the highest reach for the top 3 posts.
Without focusing on stories, the Facebook stories tab reflects that none have been posted. This is another reminder to be sure to share your posts to stories as that is just another way to share with your audience.
Instagram reach is up 4.5% and engagement on posts is up 69% also.
The Instagram stories tab also reflects a need to focus on this area of consistent content as well, but not as starkly as Facebook stories.
Compile the data & write the report.
The report can be as simple or complex as you prefer it to be. At Flywheel, we use a template to compile the facts we view as most valuable and make suggestions for changes in the future. Our report for this client will include points regarding the use of Facebook and Instagram stories to grow reach organically.
The easiest way to write the report is to find a template online that enables you to plug in the most valuable pieces of information. A written report is not a requirement, but it is helpful to see all the information in one place.
We can help you better understand your analytics and what they mean for your business regarding content planning and direction for the future. Reviewing the past is beneficial because it shows what worked well and what did not. If all of these terms and numbers are confusing, we’d love to help you with a complimentary assessment of your social media analytics. You can simply send us a few screenshots and we can give you a one-page analysis of the information – for free!
We would love to work with you. Click the button today and send us an email. Ask for a free social media analysis. We can get started right away – for free – on your social media analysis.
