Your Monthly Social Media Report, Made Simple: What the Numbers Mean for Your Business
Every month, my clients get a report. And every month, I want the same thing to happen when they open it: they understand it in five minutes, and they know what we're doing next.
That's not always what people are used to. A lot of business owners have received reports that look like a wall of charts, full of words like "impressions" and "engagement rate," with no explanation of what any of it means for the business. So let's fix that. Here's how I'd walk you through your numbers if we were sitting across the table from each other.
Start with the story, not the spreadsheet
Before you look at a single number, you should see a short summary in plain English. What went out this month? What did people respond to? What didn't land? What are we changing?
If a report can't tell you that in a few sentences, the numbers underneath it don't matter much. The data is there to support the story, not replace it. That's why every report I send leads with takeaways before charts.
Reach and impressions: how many people saw you
These two get mixed up a lot, so here's the simple version:
Reach is how many different people saw your content.
Impressions is how many times your content was seen in total, including people who saw it more than once.
Reach tells you how far your message traveled. If reach is growing, more new people are discovering you. If impressions are high but reach is flat, the same audience is seeing you over and over, which can be great for staying top of mind, but it also tells us it's time to put something in front of fresh eyes.
Engagement: who leaned in
Engagement is everything people do after they see a post: likes, comments, shares, saves, clicks, and messages. Not all engagement is equal. A like is a nod. A comment is a conversation. A save means "I want to come back to this." A share means "someone I know needs to see this."
When I look at engagement, I'm looking for patterns. Which topics start conversations? Which posts get saved? Those answers shape what we make next month far more than any single viral moment.
Followers: helpful, but not the whole picture
Follower growth feels good, and it matters. But a smaller, engaged audience of the right people will do more for a local business than a large audience that never shows up.
So yes, we'll track followers. But I'll always put them in context: are these the people you want as customers? Are they engaging? Are they reaching out? That's the part that turns into revenue.
What we'll change because of it
This is the most important section of any report, and too many reports skip it entirely.
Every month, you should see a short list of what we're doing differently based on what we learned. Maybe your behind-the-scenes posts outperformed your promotional ones, so we lean into that. Maybe a platform isn't earning its keep for your business, so we pull back and put that energy somewhere better. Maybe a post brought in phone calls, so we build a series around it.
A good report doesn't just tell you what happened. It tells you what's next, and it gives you a chance to weigh in before anything changes.
Let's walk through your numbers together
If you've been getting reports that leave you with more questions than answers, or you're not getting reports at all, I'd love to help. We can sit down, look at where your social media stands today, and talk about what "working" should look like for your business.
— Jamie Miller, Owner & Founder, JLM Digital