Picture this: Your boss is asking you about the business impact of your social media strategy<\/u><\/a>. You know you\u2019ve moved the needle \u2014 brought in website visitors, converted some of them, and nudged brand awareness. But how do you prove it?<\/p>\n This is where a social media dashboard comes in handy. It\u2019s a visual representation of the key metrics that prove the impact of your social media efforts. Your job as a social media manager is to convert the raw data of social media metrics into something easily understandable for you, your team, and your executives.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not all it is. A social media marketing dashboard also helps in:<\/p>\n This article is a complete guide for creating a social media dashboard: what social media metrics you should monitor, where to get them, how to build helpful data visualizations, and a lot more.<\/p>\n The most important thing about building a social media reporting dashboard is it should be tailor-made. As social media managers, you likely have to communicate with various stakeholders \u2014 all of whom have different levels of knowledge about your marketing strategy and social media in general.<\/p>\n C-suite executives might not know which social media channels the company is active on and why. They might also be unaware of the various features of different social media platforms. However, they also have concerns about whether the marketing dollars are well-spent. So, they need more explainers behind your marketing strategy. You need to add not just the engagement metrics<\/u><\/a> but also prove you\u2019ve made informed decisions to get the value of money & resources.<\/p>\n On the other hand, your social media team doesn\u2019t need to know the thought process behind your social media marketing strategy. They likely had an input in formulating it. Their social media reporting dashboard needs to focus more on execution. Perhaps you\u2019re experimenting with a new social media channel \u2014 so you need to create custom reports on how your social media posts are performing here and any valuable insights you\u2019ve derived.<\/p>\n Maybe you\u2019re working as a creator on your own business. In this case, your social media dashboard needs to serve only you. You don\u2019t need to include the standard social media metrics since you\u2019re living and breathing them anyway. You need deeper insights about your target audience and what they love.<\/p>\n What a social media dashboard displays depends on who\u2019s at the receiving end. Instead of relying on cookie-cutter social media dashboard templates that you have to spend forever tinkering with, it\u2019s a better use of your time to build custom social media dashboards (and their templates) for your unique use case.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s everything you need to ask to create the most impactful custom social media dashboards:<\/p>\n Answering these questions will help you tailor the scope of your social media dashboard and eliminate unnecessary bloat.<\/p>\n Can you find almost all social media analytics you need natively on your social media accounts? Of course. All social media platforms have in-built performance data.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s a lot<\/em> of busy work. And I mean, a lot.<\/em> You\u2019ll have to gather raw data from multiple channels > add it to Google Sheets > derive valuable insights by playing around with the numbers > create data visualizations > and put it in a PowerPoint presentation.<\/p>\n You can develop the muscle to do this quickly and create social media dashboard templates for recurring reports. If that\u2019s the way that works best for you right now, great! Move ahead to the next section, where there\u2019s a step-by-step guide to follow this process. But there\u2019s a far quicker route you can take: Use a social media analytics software<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n Analytics tools require you to connect your social media accounts to their software. Then, they aggregate all the real time data from multiple accounts and present it in their own native social media dashboard.<\/p>\n You can play around and tinker with the social media metrics here \u2014 filter the ones you need to examine your social media performance and create various custom reports. Most tools also offer the option to brand these reports with your logo, company colors, etc.<\/p>\n Take Buffer<\/u><\/a>. We help you track performance and create a social media dashboard for Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn. Using Buffer, you can instantly know:<\/p>\n There are plenty of benefits of using an analytics tool like Buffer (over creating dashboards yourself):<\/p>\n And that\u2019s not all: Buffer can do a whole lot more than build your reporting dashboard. It\u2019s a full-fledged social media management tool that can help you store ideas, schedule social media posts, and respond to comments.<\/p>\n Try Buffer for free for yourself<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n If you aren\u2019t ready to take the plunge with analytics tools, here\u2019s a 3-step guide to build your own social media dashboard from scratch.<\/p>\n The first step is collecting all the social media analytics you need to build your dashboard. Your data sources are the native insights on your social media accounts. If you\u2019re tracking website visits, Google Analytics can also help you understand how much traffic comes via social media.<\/p>\n All social platforms have varying degrees of depth in their key metrics. Social media pages (like Facebook pages<\/u><\/a> or LinkedIn company pages<\/u><\/a>) have slightly more thorough info than individual accounts. Here are some important performance metrics present on all social platforms:<\/p>\n Facebook insights<\/u><\/a> are on the Meta Business Suite (for Facebook Pages), for instance. It has all the details about your page followers \u2014 audience demographics, follower growth, link clicks, page visits, etc. You can even benchmark your social media dashboard against similar businesses on Facebook.<\/p>\n Similarly, Instagram insights<\/u><\/a> show you data about your Instagram followers. How your audience interacts can differ widely based on the social channel.<\/p>\n You might also have different social media goals<\/u><\/a> for different platforms. For example, maybe you use Facebook to build brand awareness and TikTok to increase conversions. Thus, your Facebook social media dashboard focuses more on overall reach, and TikTok\u2019s social dashboard highlights click-through rates and influencer marketing<\/u><\/a> results. Your social media dashboard should shift based on the direction of your niche marketing efforts.<\/p>\n Bella Rose Mortel<\/u><\/a>, social media strategist at Beehiiv<\/u><\/a>, says the best metrics to monitor are impressions, follower count, shares, and saves. She explains why:<\/p>\n \u201cI think best metrics to monitor are impressions (goal of organic social is always reach and eyeballs), as well as follower count (account growth is an important indicator that you’re doing something right), and also shares and saves in content because those are good indicators someone was like \u2018hey look at this piece of content!\u2019 or had the intention to save it to come back to later.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Collect any and all the metrics you\u2019ll need to build your social media dashboard. Where do you collect this data? I recommend Google Sheets because it\u2019s easy to organize your data there. Plus, it\u2019s easy to transfer to data visualization tools.<\/p>\n Instead of copy-pasting, you can also download analytics reports from social platforms and export them to Google Sheets. You\u2019ll have your sheets divided on a channel basis rather than a timeline basis.<\/p>\n ,Pro-tip<\/strong>: You can shift the approach of collecting your data based on the goal behind your social media analytics dashboard. For example:<\/p>\n Think ahead about how you want to present the information on your social media analytics dashboard, and you\u2019ll find the most convenient way to organize your raw data.<\/p>\n Data visualizations can become the bane of your existence if you don\u2019t know how to create them painlessly.<\/p>\n Many data sources, like Facebook Pages, visualize the data for you in their insights tab. But what if you want to create an aggregate dashboard of all<\/em> your social channels? Or what if you want to brand it with your own logo, colors, etc.?<\/p>\n This is where data visualization tools come in. Using them, you can enter the data you have on your Google Sheets and create graphs, pie charts, whatever you need. The catch? They aren\u2019t always easy to use, and they aren\u2019t always free. Google Looker Studio is a marketer\u2019s favorite, but I rely on ChartBlocks<\/u><\/a> more. You can import your Google Sheets if you want to. There are plenty of designs to choose from to customize your charts, too.<\/p>\n Some other tools you can use to visualize your data easily:<\/p>\n If you want to keep it even simpler, use the social media dashboard templates on Canva<\/u><\/a> or choose from one of their pre-made chart designs that fit your needs.<\/p>\n Transforming your rough data into fancy charts is just the beginning of showing your social media progress. Great social media reporting dashboards go beyond it to present the findings in an easy-to-comprehend way \u2014 without everyone scratching their heads and doing the work of \u201cWhat is this chart telling me?\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a checklist for transforming your dashboard from respectable to phenomenal:<\/p>\n\n
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Step 1: Collect all the data you need<\/h3>\n
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Step 2: Present the data in a visually-friendly way<\/h3>\n
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Step 3: Put the final touches by organizing your various datasets<\/h3>\n
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