Why Quarterly Reporting Is More Valuable In Social Media

As Q1 comes of 2024 comes to a close and we’re in the depths of creating monthly and quarterly reports for all our clients, we wanted to share our process with you! Tracking your analytics on a weekly and monthly basis on social media allows you to examine what type of content performs well, and what doesn’t; however, we rarely hear about the importance of quarterly reporting and how valuable it is in driving more informed decisions in your social media strategy. In this blog, we’ll dive into quarterly reporting, making data-driven decisions and show you how to plan for Q2.

The Basics of Social Media Reporting

If you’re running your social media business pages without a social media manager - you still need to be tracking your analytics and ideally generating reports on at least a monthly and quarterly basis! Understanding the data will help you understand how to create a better social media marketing strategy. It is direct feedback from your audience on what works and what doesn’t. Not understanding how to read your social media analytics might be the reason for your downfall! Here’s a brief overview of what analytics to keep track of…

• Instagram Analytics

  • Reach: This metric indicates the total number of unique users who have seen your content. It helps you understand how far your posts are reaching on Instagram. This metric is useful to track if your goal is to reach the masses and double down on exposure.

  • Engagement: Engagement metrics encompass likes, comments, shares, and saves on your posts. It gauges how actively your audience is interacting with your content, indicating its resonance and relevance. This metric is useful to track if your goal is to build a community and nurture your audience.

  • Followers: This metric represents the number of users who have chosen to subscribe to your account. Tracking follower growth over time provides insights into the effectiveness of your outreach efforts. This metric is useful to track if your goal is to grow.

  • Impressions: Impressions represent the total number of times your content has been displayed on users' screens. It differs from reach in that it includes multiple views by the same user, giving a broader perspective on content visibility. This metric is useful to track if your goal is to reach the masses and double down on exposure.

  • Non-Follower Reach: This metric identifies the number of users who have seen your content but are not currently following your account.  This metric is useful to track if your goal is to attract new audiences and broaden your reach.

  • Website Taps: Website taps measure the number of times users have clicked on links in your Instagram bio. It provides insights into your content's ability to drive traffic to external websites. This metric is useful to track if your goal is to convert.

• TikTok Analytics

  • Views: Views indicate the total number of times your TikTok content has been watched. This metric is useful to track if your goal is to reach the masses and double down on exposure.

  • Likes, Comments, Saves & Shares: These metrics collectively measure engagement on your TikTok videos. Likes, comments, saves, and shares indicate different types of user interaction. These metrics are useful to track if your goal is to build a community and nurture your audience.

  • Followers: Similar to Instagram, your follower count on TikTok represents the number of users subscribed to your account. This metric is useful to track if your goal is to grow.

These are just some of the main metrics you want to keep track of, as well as looking at your top-performing content on both Instagram and TikTok, to help you decipher what your audience best reacts to and engages with.

Quarterly > Monthly Reporting

While we still love and do monthly reporting for all our clients, it is a way to gauge what’s happening on your socials on a more short-term basis. On the other hand, quarterly reporting offers a more comprehensive view of long-term trends and patterns, allowing you to analyse your efforts and make more informed data-driven decisions that align with your long-term business and marketing goals. We use weekly and monthly reporting to keep track of what’s happening on our clients’ social media on a more short-term basis and to understand what content performs best. In contrast, we use quarterly reporting to identify whether or not we need to make any changes in our social media marketing strategy.

How do you create quarterly reports? The exact same way that you create monthly reports. You will be looking at all the same analytics but rather than a 30-day time frame, you’ll change the settings to look at the analytics with a 90-day time frame. Note that this isn’t yet possible on TikTok unfortunately, as their max time-frame is 60 days. What you can do instead, is compile all of your monthly reports and manually calculate the numbers yourself. Yes, it’s time-consuming but worth it!

Making Data-Driven Decisions

With this comprehensive data at hand that you generate with your quarterly report, you can identify whether your strategy is yielding the best results. Here are some questions you want to consider when making data-driven decisions:

• Have you achieved your longer-term social media goals? Have your goals shifted in the last 3 months?

• Based on the answer to the question above - will you be placing a larger importance on other metrics? i.e. you want to focus less on visibility and more on community building, so you shift your focus from Views, Reach & Impressions to Engagement.

• Which type of content is generating the highest reach? Reels, graphic posts, image-based carousels?

• Which type of content is generating the highest engagement? Reels, graphic posts, image-based carousels?

• Which specific topics and themes do your audience engage with most?

• Are there any patterns in posting times or frequency that correlate with increased engagement or reach?

• Is your audience demographic the same? If not, which demographics make up your most engaged audience, and how can you tailor your content to better target their interests?

• Which channels are driving the most reach?

• Which channels are driving the most traffic to your website, and the most conversion?

• Based on your answers above, does your focus need to shift more to another platform? i.e. you see more reach and conversion on TikTok, so you shift more of your focus there.

• What feedback or comments are you receiving from your audience, and how can you incorporate this input into your content/ strategy?

• How does your social media performance compare to competitors? What insights can you take away from that?

Planning for Q2

As Q1 draws to a close and we all dive into quarterly reporting, it's crucial to leverage these insights gained to inform your strategy for the upcoming quarter. Here's how to use your Q1 reports to inform your Q2 strategy:

• Review Performance: Examine your Q1 performance to identify successes and areas for improvement.

• Set New Goals: Establish specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals for Q2 based on your Q1 results.

• Refine Your Strategy: Use insights from Q1 to adjust your strategy.

Conclusion

All-in-all, while monthly reporting provides valuable insights into short-term performance, quarterly reporting offers a way more comprehensive view of your social media efforts, allowing you to make more strategic decisions aligned with your long-term goals.  Another key aspect of keeping track of all your weekly, monthly and quarterly reports is ORGANISATION! This will be a game-changer to analyse your performance over even longer periods of time, i.e. yearly. Both of our Notion templates. the Content Calendar template and the Client Portal template, offer an Analytics Hub for you to keep track of all your metrics in one place!

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