A useful monthly report explains what happened, why it happened, and what you’ll do differently next month. It should connect your content to business actions, such as enquiries, WhatsApp chats and website visits, instead of stopping at likes and follower counts. If the report doesn’t lead to a decision, it’s a screenshot of a dashboard.
Start with the goal
Every report should open by restating what the social media work is for. Is it to bring in enquiries? Build awareness for a new product? Support recruitment? Keep existing customers coming back?
The goal decides which numbers matter. A brand trying to get WhatsApp enquiries shouldn’t be judged mainly on likes, and a brand building awareness shouldn’t be judged only on sales that month.
Numbers worth including
Pick a small set and keep them the same every month so you can compare.
For reach and attention: how many people saw your content, video views and how long people watched.
For interest: saves, shares, comments with real questions, profile visits and link clicks.
For action: WhatsApp clicks, direct messages asking about products, form submissions and website visits from social.
To see website visits from social properly in Google Analytics, add UTM tags to the links in your bio, posts and ads. For WhatsApp, a separate click-to-chat link or a short tag in the prefilled message can help you tell where chats came from.
Numbers to treat with care
Likes and follower counts are easy to see and easy to over-read. A post can get lots of likes from people who’ll never buy. Follower numbers can grow from giveaways that attract the wrong audience.
They aren’t useless. They’re just weak on their own. Report them, but explain what they mean for the goal.
Explain the why
This is the part many reports skip. Numbers say what happened. The report should also say why, at least as a reasonable guess.
Look at your best and weakest posts of the month. What was different about them? The topic, the format, the first three seconds of the video, the posting time, the language, the visual? Did a boosted post bring in a different kind of audience from the organic ones?
Note anything outside your control too, like a public holiday, a platform change or a busy news week.
Say what changes next month
End with decisions. Keep doing this. Stop doing that. Test something new. Three or four clear actions are more useful than a long list of observations.
A simple report template
Here’s a format you can copy. The brackets are placeholders for your own figures and notes, not real data.
- Goal for this period: [one line]
- Summary in three sentences: what went well, what didn’t, what we’ll change.
- Main numbers this month vs last month:
- Reach: [number] vs [number]
- Video views: [number] vs [number]
- Saves and shares: [number] vs [number]
- Profile visits and link clicks: [number] vs [number]
- WhatsApp clicks and DMs about products: [number] vs [number]
- Enquiries traced to social: [number] vs [number]
- Best performing posts: [links, plus one line each on why we think they worked]
- Weakest posts: [links, plus one line each on what we’ll do differently]
- Paid activity, if any: what ran, who it reached and what it led to.
- Outside factors: [holidays, platform changes, events]
- Next month: [three or four specific actions]
A checklist for better reports
- The goal is stated at the top.
- The same set of numbers is used every month.
- At least one number links to a business action.
- Best and weakest posts are explained as well as listed.
- Paid and organic results are shown separately.
- The report ends with clear actions.
- It fits on one or two pages.
FAQ
How often should we review social media results?
Monthly works for most businesses, with a quick weekly look at anything urgent, such as comments needing replies or a boosted post that’s clearly off target. Quarterly is a good time to step back and review the whole approach.
Does follower growth matter?
Some. A growing audience of the right people helps future posts reach more of them. But a large following that never enquires or buys isn’t much help, so look at who the followers are and what they do.
Who should read the report?
Whoever makes decisions about marketing, plus the people handling enquiries. Your sales or customer service team can often tell you whether social media enquiries are any good, which the platform numbers can’t.
If your reports are full of numbers but short on answers, talk to Adxus. See how we run Social Media + AI.
