Social media reporting helps solve two problems. First, it 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 solved 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 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.

Social listening is about obtaining data. Analytics is about processing data. Reporting is about presenting it in a way that provides actionable insights and measures pre-defined KPIs.

Without effective social media reporting, the resources invested in collecting and analyzing the data are wasted. Sure, you can create a social media report in a spreadsheet or tables in a document, but that takes precious time. Why waste it when you can automate most social media reporting tasks with one (or more) of the tools we’ve picked 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 1. Dash This

DashThis is not a social media analytics solution per se. It is a dashboarding solution. However, it 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. Business plans start at $209/mo. health and social care