Hey there! As someone who lives and breathes marketing analytics at Dashthis, I'm happy to share some insights that might save you time and improve your results. For someone new to social media marketing focusing on organic growth, here's what you should be monitoring: 1. Engagement Rate This is the holy grail metric! Calculate it by dividing total engagements (likes, comments, shares) by your total number of followers, then multiply by 100. This tells you how actively your audience interacts with your content—much more valuable than vanity metrics like follower count alone. 2. Reach & Impressions Reach shows how many unique users saw your content, while impressions count total views (including multiple views from the same user). For organic growth, increasing reach should be a primary goal. 3. Audience Growth Rate Don't just track raw follower numbers—calculate your growth rate as a percentage. This helps normalize data across platforms and provides better insight into your momentum. 4. Click-Through Rate (CTR) This measures how many people click on your links compared to how many saw your post. It's crucial for understanding how effectively you're driving traffic from social platforms to your website. 5. Conversion Rate The ultimate measure of success—what percentage of social visitors take your desired action? This could be signing up, making a purchase, or any other goal that matters to your business. It is like your marketing funnel into a report, so then it is easy to see where you should focus to bring more money to your client... because as you may know at the end, this is what they're looking at (most of them ;) Here a a few good social media management/reporting tool you may like to look at to automate your reports. As I guess you have other things to do :) All-in-one reporting and social media management : Hootsuite: A veteran in the space that lets you manage multiple platforms, schedule content, and monitor conversations in one dashboard. Gives you also some organic insights. Buffer: User-friendly interface with a great free tier for beginners and small businesses. Reporting/analytics tools : DashThis: Automatically tracks your KPIs over time in visual graphs. Gives you a clean overview of multiple clients in one dashboard. Their preset social media analytics templates get you set up in minutes, saving hours of manual work. Easy-to-use and the most affordable on the market. Agencyanalytics: As all social media integrations as well as the other tools. Is made for agencies, so a lot of features to help create multiple reports. But I find the learning curve more steep than other tools. Google Data Studio: Free (not that free because you'll need social media connectors) data visualization tool. You can add all your other channels. There is more manual work to make it looks good though, it is hard to make deep analysis too (my point of view) Any questions? Let me know : ) Answer from Healthy_MKT on reddit.com
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Hootsuite Blog
blog.hootsuite.com › home › how to create a social media report [free template included]
How to create a social media report [free template included]
January 10, 2025 - Collect information about your audience demographics, interests and behaviors, and share these in your social media report. Who is your average follower at this specific moment in time? When are they online, and what do they do there? You can find this information in most platforms’ internal analytics, but social media dashboards like Hootsuite can help pull info from multiple platforms together in one spot.
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Whatagraph
whatagraph.com › blog › articles › social-media-report
Social Media Analytics Report: How to Build & Present It (Fast) | Whatagraph
October 27, 2024 - Select all the social platforms and marketing tools you use (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Google Analytics 4, and more). Log in to each platform to grant Whatagraph read-only access. Once connected, Whatagraph automatically pulls all available historical data, making it ready to visualize. Click Create Report with IQ, add a prompt like “social media metrics,” and hit Generate report.
People also ask

What's the difference between social media analytics and social media reporting?
Analytics is the process of gathering and analyzing performance data. Reporting compiles those insights into documents that communicate value to stakeholders.
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sproutsocial.com
sproutsocial.com › sprout blog › master the art of social media reporting (downloadable template) › social media reporting hub
Master the art of social media reporting (downloadable template)
How long does it take to create a social media report?
Manual reporting takes several hours to days, depending on platform coverage. Sprout Social automates data collection, reducing reporting time to minutes.
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sproutsocial.com
sproutsocial.com › sprout blog › master the art of social media reporting (downloadable template) › social media reporting hub
Master the art of social media reporting (downloadable template)
How do I explain social media ROI to executives who don't understand social media?
Connect social data to business outcomes like website traffic, lead generation and revenue. Frame reporting around business impact, not vanity metrics like likes or followers.
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sproutsocial.com
sproutsocial.com › sprout blog › master the art of social media reporting (downloadable template) › social media reporting hub
Master the art of social media reporting (downloadable template)
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Sprinklr
sprinklr.com › blog › social-media-reports
9+ Social Media Reports: Templates & Examples | Sprinklr
January 2, 2025 - A social media report is a detailed document that tracks key social media metrics, trends and audience behaviors across target social platforms. It depicts the outcomes of your social media activities to stakeholders, painting a meaningful story ...
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HubSpot
knowledge.hubspot.com › social › analyze-social-reports
Analyze social reports
November 13, 2025 - Learn how to use the social reports tool to evaluate the effectiveness of your social media efforts.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/socialmediamarketing › how do you perform sm analytics?
r/SocialMediaMarketing on Reddit: How do you perform SM analytics?
March 23, 2025 -

Since I’m new to social media marketing, I have been doing manual analysis. I’m fine doing that but I was wondering if you guys have any specific thing you look for while performing an analysis or any specific metric to keep an eye out for. I aim for organic so any advice on that would be appreciated.

P.S: Y’all are so helpful and insightful and I’m glad to be a part of this subreddit. Thank you ✨

Top answer
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Hey there! As someone who lives and breathes marketing analytics at Dashthis, I'm happy to share some insights that might save you time and improve your results. For someone new to social media marketing focusing on organic growth, here's what you should be monitoring: 1. Engagement Rate This is the holy grail metric! Calculate it by dividing total engagements (likes, comments, shares) by your total number of followers, then multiply by 100. This tells you how actively your audience interacts with your content—much more valuable than vanity metrics like follower count alone. 2. Reach & Impressions Reach shows how many unique users saw your content, while impressions count total views (including multiple views from the same user). For organic growth, increasing reach should be a primary goal. 3. Audience Growth Rate Don't just track raw follower numbers—calculate your growth rate as a percentage. This helps normalize data across platforms and provides better insight into your momentum. 4. Click-Through Rate (CTR) This measures how many people click on your links compared to how many saw your post. It's crucial for understanding how effectively you're driving traffic from social platforms to your website. 5. Conversion Rate The ultimate measure of success—what percentage of social visitors take your desired action? This could be signing up, making a purchase, or any other goal that matters to your business. It is like your marketing funnel into a report, so then it is easy to see where you should focus to bring more money to your client... because as you may know at the end, this is what they're looking at (most of them ;) Here a a few good social media management/reporting tool you may like to look at to automate your reports. As I guess you have other things to do :) All-in-one reporting and social media management : Hootsuite: A veteran in the space that lets you manage multiple platforms, schedule content, and monitor conversations in one dashboard. Gives you also some organic insights. Buffer: User-friendly interface with a great free tier for beginners and small businesses. Reporting/analytics tools : DashThis: Automatically tracks your KPIs over time in visual graphs. Gives you a clean overview of multiple clients in one dashboard. Their preset social media analytics templates get you set up in minutes, saving hours of manual work. Easy-to-use and the most affordable on the market. Agencyanalytics: As all social media integrations as well as the other tools. Is made for agencies, so a lot of features to help create multiple reports. But I find the learning curve more steep than other tools. Google Data Studio: Free (not that free because you'll need social media connectors) data visualization tool. You can add all your other channels. There is more manual work to make it looks good though, it is hard to make deep analysis too (my point of view) Any questions? Let me know : )
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I'm by no means a big creator or professional marketer (I'm a dev building SaaS products), but here are my two cents. My goal is usually to understand WHAT content gets views in my audience and WHY. My process looks like this: Find all competitors Find top-performing accounts in the niche Analyze what they post and what gets views When doing analysis, I pay special attention to: Scroll stoppers - What made them stop scrolling? E.g. WTF visual, provocative hook, etc. Value - What made them keep watching? E.g. valuable content, fun content, etc. CTA - Are there any calls to visit/subscribe/install? Branding - Do they mention their product/service? Comments - What are people discussing? I also take notes about the profiles themselves: How many profiles are associated with the company/product? Are they branded or authentic? Do they include links or not? Based on all that, I compile a matrix of what content is posted. From here, there are two options - either fill in the gaps or adapt someone else's strategy. Hope that helps!
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DashThis
dashthis.com › blog › social-media-analytics-reports-guide
5+ social media analytics tools & reports [complete guide]
Select the Facebook Insights report template (with pre-filled popular KPIs like post reach and engagement, and more) ... How it works: Instagram analytics tells you everything you need to know about your audience (e.g., overall trends across followers, campaign performance, social media data revolving around stories and IGTV videos).
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/socialmediamanagers › how do you structure social media reports when clients don’t care about engagement?
r/SocialMediaManagers on Reddit: How do you structure social media reports when clients don’t care about engagement?
November 24, 2024 -

Some clients just want a clear answer to “Is this working?” and they don’t care about likes, reach, or even impressions.

Over time, I’ve had to rethink how I present reports to non-technical stakeholders. I now structure them in a way that helps guide the conversation instead of defending numbers they don’t understand.

I put together a short breakdown of the 4 key elements I include in every social media report now from the executive summary to paid vs organic splits.

I’d love to hear how you organize your reports, especially for clients who:

  • Tune out when engagement is mentioned

  • Focus only on ROI or budget

  • Don’t see the value in monthly reporting (until it’s framed right)

Drop your wins, mistakes, or favorite formats. I’m genuinely curious how others handle this.

I’ll drop a quick video version of my framework in the first comment.

Find elsewhere
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Social Status
socialstatus.io › home
Social media analytics and reporting tools | Social Status
October 17, 2023 - Social media analytics and reporting tools for all main social channels, social media competitor analysis, social ad reporting and automated reports.
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Sprout Social
sproutsocial.com › sprout blog › master the art of social media reporting (downloadable template) › social media reporting hub
Master the art of social media reporting (downloadable template)
3 days ago - With Sprout Social, you customize your reports beyond the data you get from native analytics. These presentation-ready reports range from platform-specific metrics to your entire social presence. Social media reporting is more than a numbers game. Providing real-world data examples from your brand’s social media can open your stakeholders’ eyes.
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Tability
tability.io › odt › articles › how-to-create-an-outstanding-social-media-report
How to create an outstanding social media report
First, determine which social media platforms you want to look at—Facebook, Twitter (X), Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube are common choices. At Tability, we report on LinkedIn and Twitter. Next, decide on the time frame you want to cover, like the last month or maybe the past quarter, to match up with your business's activities and when you need to report. We report monthly. Now comes the fun part: getting the data. You can use the platforms’ native analytics or a third-party tool like Buffer or SocialPilot.
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Rival IQ
rivaliq.com › home › free social media analytics and benchmarks
Free Social Media Analytics and Benchmarks | Rival IQ
May 3, 2022 - How do you stack up against your top competitor? Run a free head-to-head social media report to find out.
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Reportgarden
reportgarden.com › post › how-to-create-a-social-media-report
How to Create a Social Media Report in 2025 + Free Template | Report Garden
November 4, 2024 - Document any changes in strategy or new insights learned along the way to inform future reporting and goal-setting. Now, determine which data to include that best illustrates your progress towards these goals—these are your success metrics. The social media analytics featured in your social media report should align with your specific objectives.
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Planable
planable.io › blog › how to create a social media report in 2026 (+ template)
How to create a social media report in 2026 (+ template)
September 10, 2025 - Planable provides a handy social media reporting template that includes all core metrics. Track your account’s reach and impressions, monitor follower growth, and study the best-performing posts for sustainable success. Want to see how Planable’s analytics can make your social media reports shine?
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Asana
asana.com › templates › social-media-reporting
Free Social Media Reporting Template That Saves Hours [2025] • Asana
This social media reporting template simplifies everything. With built-in dashboards, structured task tracking, and integrations with tools like Google Analytics and Canva, you can monitor engagement metrics, track content performance, and produce consistent reports that align with your marketing ...
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AgencyAnalytics
agencyanalytics.com › templates › reports › social-media
Free Social Media Analytics Report Template
To write a social media report, collect relevant data points from social media analytics tools and social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Highlight marketing performance key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement rate, follower growth, and conversions.
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Oviond
oviond.com › social media reporting › the requisite guide to creating a social media analytics report pdf
The Requisite Guide To Creating A Social Media Analytics Report PDF | Oviond
Evaluates the performance of different content types in your social media report, identifying what resonates best with your audience. What kind of content is winning our audience’s hearts? Are there certain types that do better on specific platforms? Analyzes each social media platform’s contribution to your overall strategy in your analytics report, highlighting areas of strength and those needing focus.
Published   December 11, 2023
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Hootsuite Blog
blog.hootsuite.com › home › what is social media analytics? the complete guide
What is social media analytics? The complete guide
July 18, 2025 - There are different ways to use social media data analytics. You can track your own performance, compare your results with competitors, or even see how you stack up against the whole industry so that you can excel in your content strategy. Plus, you can monitor brand mentions and what people are saying about you online — and even automate alerts or reporting workflows to stay ahead of trends.
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Buffer
buffer.com › analyze
Social Media Analytics & Reporting Made Simple | Buffer
Get easy-to-understand analytics that help you grow without the spreadsheets.Get started for free · Learn which post types perform best, who’s engaging, and when to post – all in a way that’s easy to understand. Enjoy aggregated views of your performance across all your social channels. Build and download reports that make you look good (without spending hours making them).
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Socialinsider
socialinsider.io
Social media analytics and benchmarking tools | Socialinsider
Sociainsider’s social media analytics, competitor analysis, and benchmarking tools allow you to measure social media performance, run audits, and compare performance.
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Adobe
adobe.com › express › templates › report › social-media
Free Social Media Report Templates | Adobe Express
Choose from dozens of online social media report template ideas from Adobe Express to help you easily create your own free newsletter. All creative skill levels are welcome.