How to create a social media report

TL;DR

• A social media report summarizes your key metrics, progress toward goals, and strategic takeaways for stakeholders like leadership, clients, or cross-functional teams

• Include a summary, key metrics by category (engagement, reach, audience growth, paid), top-performing posts, community insights, campaign results, and next steps

• Report monthly for regular check-ins, quarterly for deeper strategic analysis, and annually for big-picture performance reviews

• Later's analytics dashboard lets you pull metrics from 8 platforms and export data directly for faster, more accurate reporting

The numbers are in. Now comes the hard part: turning raw metrics into a story that actually means something to your boss, your client, or the team waiting on your update.

A strong social media report does more than recap what happened. It connects performance to goals, surfaces the insights that matter, and sets up the next move. The difference between a report that gets skimmed and one that drives decisions often comes down to structure, clarity, and knowing which metrics deserve the spotlight.

What is a social media report?

A social media report is an overview of your key social media performance metrics, how you're tracking in comparison to your goals, and key actions taken, as well as the next steps.

These reports should be clear, precise, and include relevant insights about everything you've posted, whether it's monthly, quarterly, or yearly.

Done right, your social media report will answer the following questions:

• What do the numbers reveal about your content strategy?

• What do they reveal about your audience?

• Have you run any experiments or major campaigns? How did they affect your performance?

• Are you being affected by seasonality?

• What key takeaways can you implement for the following weeks or months?

Truly understanding how (and why) your content performs the way it does is key to building a successful social media strategy for your business.

What to include in a social media report

Here are the key components to include in your social media report.

Summary

Provide a one- to two-sentence overview of how you performed this month, including what went well and what didn't. This makes it easy for busy execs and clients to get a quick insight into how your social campaigns are going.

Key metrics

Next, you'll want to provide your key metrics and data that compares how they're performing against your goals and KPIs.

You'll also want to provide period-over-period context to make growth and improvements easy to interpret and understand.

Remember that those reading your report might not be familiar with social media terminology, so provide clear explanations when needed to keep the report easy to read.

The metrics you choose should align directly with your goals. Common metrics provided include:

• Impressions and reach

• Likes and reactions

• Engagement rate

• Comments, reposts, and shares

• Click through rate and link in bio clicks

• Profile visits and new followers

Learn more about social KPIs from our Ultimate Guide to Social Media Analytics to figure out which work best for your team.

Highest-performing posts

Provide examples of posts that performed well – and why.

Community insights

What are your customers asking and talking about in your comments and DMs? These insights from your community can make a real impact.

Campaigns

If you're supporting a new product launch or go-to-market campaign on social, you'll want to give context as to how those campaigns performed.

Key strategy updates

How did your strategy change compared to the previous period? Did you try anything new? Did it work?

What to expect in the next report

Outline your key actions for the next month, why you're doing them, and what results you expect to see.

Key social media metrics to track by category

Not all metrics carry equal weight. The ones that matter most depend on what you're trying to achieve. Organizing your social media metrics into categories makes it easier to connect data to goals and helps stakeholders quickly understand what's working.

Reach and awareness metrics

These metrics tell you how far your content travels. Track impressions (total times content was displayed), reach (unique accounts that saw your content), video views, and brand mentions. Worth noting: Meta has been shifting Facebook reporting toward view-based metrics, so older impressions and reach labels will look different than they used to.

Engagement metrics

Social media engagement reveals whether your content resonates. Look at likes, comments, shares, saves, replies, and your overall engagement rate. High engagement signals that your audience finds value in what you're posting.

Audience growth metrics

These metrics reveal how effectively you're building a community. Track follower growth rate, profile visits, and the balance between new followers and unfollows. Steady growth indicates your content strategy is attracting the right people.

Conversion and traffic metrics

When your goal is driving action, focus here. Monitor link clicks, link in bio clicks, website traffic from social, and conversions. These metrics connect social performance directly to business outcomes.

Paid social metrics

For paid campaigns, track ad spend, CPM (cost per thousand impressions), CPC (cost per click), ROAS (return on ad spend), and conversions attributed to paid efforts. These help you understand whether your ad budget is working efficiently.

How often should you create a social media report?

The right reporting cadence depends on your team size, stakeholder needs, and how quickly your strategy evolves.

• Monthly reports work best for regular check-ins. They give you enough data to spot trends without overwhelming stakeholders with constant updates. Most social media managers default to monthly reporting for ongoing performance tracking.

• Quarterly reports provide deeper strategic analysis. Use these to evaluate whether you're on pace to hit annual goals, assess campaign performance over longer periods, and make bigger strategic pivots.

• Annual reports offer the big-picture view. They're ideal for year-over-year comparisons, budget planning conversations, and demonstrating long-term ROI to leadership.

For fast-moving campaigns or product launches, add weekly snapshots. But for most teams, a monthly social media report strikes the right balance between staying informed and staying sane.

How to create a social media report

Now it's time to create your social media report.

Step 1: Identify your social media goals

Your social media goals will set the stage for what's included in your monthly report.

The most effective goals are those that are SMART:

• Specific: Include specifics to help you track the success of your content.

• Measurable: The goal has to be measured in some way. This is where your key metrics come into play.

• Achievable: Is this goal in scope? Your goals should be challenging, but still within reach.

• Relevant: Is this goal working towards achieving your larger business objectives?

• Time-sensitive: What is the timeline for this goal?

Once you know your goals, you can set clear benchmarks to measure your performance against.

This way, if you're over or underperforming, you can adjust your strategy as needed.

Step 2: Choose which metrics you'll report on

Remember: your monthly report is all about sharing a high-level check-in.

So, with your social media goals in mind, choose which metrics you'll report on for each platform.

For example, if you're looking to build awareness, your follower growth, reach, and engagement will be important metrics to track.

However, if you're trying to drive people to your website, you're going to focus a lot more on link clicks and conversions.

This will help you frame and fill out the report — including whether you're on pace to hit your monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals.

Step 3: Include a high-level overview of your progress

Right off the bat, you'll want to include a snapshot of your progress with a monthly check-in slide:

This shows a high-level overview of how you're tracking toward your goals and can help inform your strategy for the months to follow.

Likewise, your top-performing posts slide will give more insight into what content drove the most sessions, got the most engagement, and reached the most people:

Here, you can briefly explain why each post performed so well, and call out any trends you notice.

For example, if the same post drove the most sessions and engagement, then you know you've hit the money spot.

Step 4: Add monthly performance breakdowns and metrics

Next, it's time to add your social media analytics to the report.

Most social platforms have built-in analytics dashboards. Instagram surfaces metrics through its Professional Dashboard and Insights, while Pinterest Analytics requires a business account. For more flexibility and peace of mind, keep track of your metrics in a spreadsheet that you own.

With Later, you can export your Instagram analytics from your dashboard as a CSV file directly to your desktop:

This will make it easier for you to see all of your data in a spreadsheet format, which you can then copy and paste into your report.

Separate the performance breakdown into three sections:

• Instagram (Organic): Instagram, Instagram Stories, Instagram Reels

• All Other Platforms (Organic): Facebook, Pinterest, X, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn

• Paid: Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, X, TikTok, LinkedIn, Google Ads

Separating the data in this way will help you get a clear picture at first glance. It also lets you segment certain metrics for easier comparison.

For example, Instagram Reels should be analyzed separately from other content on Instagram (e.g. static feed posts) because the reach potential is so much higher.

To calculate your monthly percent change, subtract the previous month from the current month. Then divide the result by the previous month and multiply by 100.

For example, if you had 436 Instagram followers in March and 562 followers in April, your equation should look like:

• 526 - 436 = 126

• 126/436 = 0.288

• 0.288 x 100 = 29%

This means that from March to April your Instagram profile grew by +29%.

Step 5: Summarize your key learnings and monthly takeaways

To conclude your monthly report, it's important to reflect on what worked and what didn't — so you can drive your strategy forward:

• Wins: What worked this month? Did something perform exceptionally well?

• Challenges: What didn't land this month? This is a great time to present tweaks to your strategy. What can you try next month?

• Opportunities: Share new platform features that you want to experiment with, upcoming holidays or events, or key learnings from your wins and challenges.

Step 6: Focus on the insights that matter

Here's the truth: people tend to doze off when it comes to talking numbers, so you'll want to keep things concise.

This is your chance to highlight your wins, show how you're supporting business goals, and point out trends or opportunities.

Tailor your focus based on your audience. Executives want the bottom line: are we hitting goals, and what's the business impact? If leadership seems unimpressed, the issue is often framing, not performance. Clients want to see value and progress. Your team wants actionable details they can use to improve next month's content.

Remember: this is a monthly social media report. Unlike your quarterly or yearly analysis, this report should be much more succinct.

It's about showing high-level results, drawing insights, and making sure your social media strategy is on the right track.

Best social media reporting tools for 2026

You don't need to do it all alone. Here are some of the best social media reporting tools available:

1. Later — Later makes accessing your social media metrics from 8 different platforms simple, making monthly analysis easy. Beyond scheduling and publishing, Later offers social listening, multi-platform analytics, and team collaboration features that streamline the entire reporting process. Plus, you can export data directly to build your reports faster.

2. Sprout Social — Sprout's My Reports lets you combine various reports, add text annotations, and include widgets to filter data for different stakeholder audiences. It's a strong fit for agencies and in-house enterprise teams that need polished, stakeholder-ready exports, plus advanced social listening and competitor benchmarking across networks.

3. Sendible — One of the only fully white-label social media analytics tools on the market, making it a great choice for agencies. It offers flexible multi-channel reporting with a drag-and-drop report builder, customizable templates, and 200+ data modules, so you can visualize exactly what you want and brand every report as your own.

4. DashThis — Built primarily for reporting rather than analytics, DashThis is best for automated client reporting. It pulls data from multiple channels into automated, shareable dashboards, making it ideal for teams who want hands-off, recurring reports without manual assembly.

How to access Later's social media analytics

To create a great social media report, you first need to get a grasp on your analytics.

Most social media platforms (like Instagram) have built-in analytics tools you can use to discover your weekly numbers, which you can then manually track in a spreadsheet.

However, with a third-party tool like Later, you'll have an easier way to glean these insights, plus more in-depth data too.

Later's Analytics dashboard is easy to interpret and lets you navigate different tabs, including Post Performance. You can pull metrics from all 8 supported platforms — Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Threads, YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Snapchat, in one place.

This way, you can filter by different metrics, including engagement, followers, reach, likes, and more:

Plus, you can export your analytics directly to your desktop (in a CSV file), making it easy to keep all of your numbers in spreadsheet format.

Then, when you're ready to create your social media report, use this data and spotlight the most relevant metrics for your boss, team, or clients.

Tips for presenting your social media report

A well-built report only matters if it lands with your audience. Here's how to make sure your insights actually get heard:

1. Lead with the headline. Start with your most important finding or biggest win. Don't make stakeholders dig for the good stuff.

2. Tailor depth to your audience. Executives want the summary and business impact. Clients want proof of progress. Your team wants the details they can act on. Adjust accordingly.

3. Visualize the data. Charts and graphs communicate trends faster than tables of numbers. Use visuals to make comparisons and changes over time immediately clear.

4. Connect metrics to goals. Don't just report that engagement increased 15%. Explain why that matters: "Engagement increased 15%, putting us ahead of pace to hit our Q2 awareness goal."

5. End with next steps. Every report should point forward. What will you do differently? What opportunities are you pursuing? This shows strategic thinking, not just number-crunching.

And there you have it, a step-by-step guide for creating your own monthly social media report.

Whether you're presenting to senior leadership, giving a client update, or sharing with another department, you want your reports to be easy-to-read and easy-to-follow.

You're all set for success.

Frequently asked questions

What is a social media report?

A social media report is a document that summarizes your key performance metrics, progress toward goals, and strategic insights from your social media activity over a specific time period. It helps stakeholders understand what's working, what isn't, and what actions to take next.

What should I include in a social media report?

Include a summary, key metrics aligned to your goals, top-performing posts, community insights, campaign results, strategy updates, and next steps. The specific metrics you highlight should connect directly to what you're trying to achieve.

How often should I create a social media report?

Most teams create monthly reports for regular check-ins, with quarterly and annual reports for deeper strategic analysis. The right cadence depends on your stakeholder needs and how quickly your strategy evolves.

What is the difference between a social media report and a dashboard?

A social media report is a static document that summarizes performance over a specific period, while a social analytics dashboard provides real-time, continuously updated metrics. Reports are better for stakeholder presentations; dashboards are better for day-to-day monitoring.

What metrics should I track in a social media report?

Track metrics that align with your goals, typically including reach, engagement rate, follower growth, link clicks, and conversions. Organize them by category (awareness, engagement, audience growth, conversion, paid) to make the data easier to interpret.

How do I calculate month-over-month growth for social media?

Subtract the previous month's value from the current month's value, divide by the previous month's value, and multiply by 100 to get the percentage change. For example, going from 436 to 562 followers equals 29% growth.

What is the best format for a social media report?

The best format depends on your audience, but slide decks (Google Slides or PowerPoint) work well for presentations while PDFs are ideal for sharing via email. Later's free template works in both formats.

How long should a social media report be?

A monthly social media report should be concise, typically 5-10 slides or pages, focusing on high-level insights rather than exhaustive data. Save the deep dives for quarterly reviews.

Can I automate social media reporting?

Yes, tools like Later let you export analytics data directly, and many reporting platforms offer automated data pulls and scheduled report generation. Automation saves time on data collection so you can focus on analysis.

What tools can I use to create a social media report?

You can use social media management platforms like Later, dedicated reporting tools like Socialinsider, or presentation software like Google Slides with a template. Later's free template gives you a head start on structure and design.