Monthly social reports tend to arrive as thirty slides of charts, most of which go up. They are usually assembled to demonstrate activity rather than to inform a decision, and they are read accordingly — skimmed, filed, never questioned.
Here is how to read one properly, and what to ask for instead.
Start at the bottom of the funnel and work up
Most reports are ordered impressions first, conversions last, which is the order of decreasing comfort. Read it backwards.
Start with whatever is closest to revenue — enquiries, form submissions, calls, demo requests. If those numbers are absent, that is the finding. Everything above them is potential, not result, and a report that never reaches the bottom of the funnel is describing effort rather than outcome.
Metrics that mean something
Click-through to your site, by platform. Tells you which platform actually sends people rather than which one collects likes.
Enquiries attributed to social, however imperfectly. Even a self-reported “how did you hear about us” is more useful than reach.
Saves and shares rather than likes. A save is someone intending to come back; a like costs nothing and means roughly that.
Follower quality — are the new followers plausibly your buyers, or are they other agencies and bots? Growth in the wrong audience is worse than no growth, because it degrades every rate you subsequently measure.
Metrics that are mostly decorative
Impressions and reach. Easy to inflate, weakly connected to outcome. Useful as context, meaningless as a headline.
Total followers. A vanity number that only moves up, which is exactly why it appears on slide two.
Engagement rate without a definition. Engagement divided by what — followers, reach, impressions? Each gives a very different figure, and unless the report states which, the number is not comparable to anything, including itself last month.
Watch for the three presentational tricks
A metric that appears once. If a number is in this month’s report and not last month’s, ask why. Usually it went up this month and the others did not.
Percentages without absolutes. “Engagement up 300%” is four interactions instead of one. Ask for both numbers, always.
A moved comparison period. Month-on-month one month and year-on-year the next means someone chose the flattering baseline. Fix the comparison period at the start and keep it.
What should be there and usually is not
Three things separate a report that informs from one that reassures:
- What did not work. A report where everything succeeded is not a report. Ask which posts underperformed and what that suggests.
- A recommendation with a reason. Not “continue current strategy” — a specific change, and the evidence behind it.
- Progress against something agreed. Numbers are meaningless without a target set in advance. If no target was set, that is the first thing to fix.
The question that reframes the meeting
Ask: “what would you change if this were your business?”
It moves the conversation from defending the numbers to using them, and the quality of the answer tells you whether the person presenting understands your business or is reading a dashboard aloud.
Set the format once
Agree at the start what the report contains, which comparison period it uses, and which three numbers are the ones you both care about. Then keep it stable for long enough that trends are visible.
A short report with consistent metrics beats a long one that reinvents itself monthly — and the reinvention is usually what happens when the stable numbers stop looking good.
Common questions
What should a monthly social media report include?
Progress against a target agreed in advance, click-throughs and enquiries attributed to social, what underperformed and why, and a specific recommended change with the evidence behind it. Consistent comparison periods throughout.
Which social media metrics actually matter?
Click-through to your site by platform, enquiries attributed to social, saves and shares rather than likes, and whether new followers plausibly resemble your buyers. Impressions, reach and total followers are context, not results.
Why is engagement rate confusing?
Because it can be calculated against followers, reach or impressions, and each produces a very different figure. Unless the report states the denominator, the number cannot be compared to anything — including the same metric last month.
What is a warning sign in an agency report?
A metric that appears in one month and not the next, percentages quoted without the underlying absolute numbers, and a comparison period that changes between reports. Each of the three usually means a flattering baseline was selected.
Monthly performance reporting is in every tier, with analytics and marketing dashboards from Growth upward — see social media management, or read why your dashboard is not being used.
