What social metrics should I actually be reporting on? A step-by-step guide to optimising your social reporting.

Communications teams have more data than ever. Dashboards track reach, engagement, impressions, follower growth and sentiment across platforms. Reporting cycles are structured. Performance is visible. 

The real challenge is not access to metrics. It is knowing what they mean, and what to do next. 

Platforms are now shaping how people access news and public information – 28.4% of Australians use social media to keep up to date with news stories and this is especially prevalent during major events and periods of uncertainty. With Australians spending close to two hours per day on social media, social channels are now central to how messages are received, understood and tested in public.  

And yet, many teams are missing opportunities to better tap into this communications resource, due to a gap between reporting and actionable insight. This makes it harder to secure buy-in for creative ideas, and results in more time spent fumbling over data rather than turning it into better content. 

A structured approach helps to close that gap.  

This article outlines a practical three-stage framework to help you optimise your social reporting:  

1. Define what to measure before reporting begins 

2. Interpret data trends as they emerge 

3. Apply trend analysis and benchmarking to guide future decisions 

Stage One: Define what to measure before reporting begins

As with any communications activity, effective social measurement should start with the end in mind.  

Before selecting metrics or designing reports, communications teams should ask themselves: 

• What decisions does this reporting need to support? 

• What risks, questions or outcomes matter most right now? 

• Who is the primary audience for this? 

• What action should this insight enable? 

Reporting often defaults to what is easiest to measure: reach, engagement rate, follower growth, impressions, and video views. These metrics are useful, but only when tied to real-world outcomes and presented in context for the intended recipients of the report. 

Are you aiming to increase awareness of a policy change? Improve public understanding of a service? Reduce the spread of misinformation? Support a behaviour change campaign? Strengthen trust in an agency or program? 

Each of these objectives requires different metrics and benchmarks to report on social media effectiveness. Reach likely won’t mean much to a senior executive, unless it’s contextualised as an indicator of awareness and benchmarked against past campaigns or industry standards to demonstrate the impact of a campaign. Equally, an engagement rate benchmark for a public health campaign will not look the same for a complex regulatory announcement. To measure the impact of countering misinformation, tracking mentions and comment moderation tell a more compelling story than reporting on engagements alone. 

Establishing clear goals early prevents over-reliance on metrics that may look good in a report but tell you little about whether your communications is working. It also creates the foundation for meaningful benchmarking later. 

Stage Two: Interpret data trends as they emerge

Once reporting is underway, patterns begin to surface. Communications teams regularly observe fluctuations in reach and engagement, mention spikes following major announcements or media coverage, and increased commenting during issues or periods of community concern. These shifts are normal, especially in public sector environments. 

However, access to dashboards alone does not guarantee better decisions. 

Many reports describe what changed but stop short of explaining what it means. 

"Engagement decreased 8%." 

"Reach increased following an announcement." 

"Comments doubled this week."  

These statements remain incomplete without additional context.  A drop in engagement could be a seasonal variation — or it might be a sign that messaging is losing resonance. Similarly, high reach does not necessarily guarantee understanding. 

For example, a policy announcement might achieve significant reach and engagement. On the surface, performance looks positive. But a closer look at the comments reveals repeated questions about eligibility. What appears to be interest is actually confusion. 

This is where interpretation becomes critical. 

During each reporting cycle, teams should ask: 

• What changed, and why? 

• Is this consistent with historical patterns? 

• Does this align with our communications objectives? 

• Do we need to adjust content, timing, format or channel? 

This enables communications teams to optimise throughout the campaign process and use reporting not just to tick a box, but as an on-going optimisation tool.  It allows teams to clarify messaging before uncertainty escalates, refine formats that resonate, and appropriately allocate resources.  

Stage Three: Apply trend analysis and benchmarking to guide future decisions

On-going reporting is crucial to ensuring a continuous test, learn, and iterate approach. However, it is equally valuable to take a step back every so often to assess trends over a longer time frame. This equips communications professionals to move beyond reviewing performance in an isolated period to using trends over time to inform strategy.  

Trend analysis can reveal: 

• sustained shifts in sentiment, 

• repeated questions in comments, and 

• persistent gaps between intended messages and actual public response.   

These are all examples of valuable insights that can help advise pivots in execution and revision of communications priorities. A gradual decline across multiple quarters may indicate a deeper trust issue or messaging gap. 

Recurring clarification questions are particularly important. If audiences are repeatedly asking about eligibility, timelines, or processes, communication has not landed as intended, indicating an opportunity to adjust your campaign approach. 

Effective teams use these insights as a feedback loop – responding by refining key messages, updating FAQs, or adjusting communications strategy. 

The Benchmarking Challenge

Benchmarking is where many reporting frameworks stall.  

Common issues include: 

• Metrics viewed in isolation, without historical or comparative context.

• Inconsistent benchmarks applied across teams, campaigns or platforms. 

• Comparisons made without accounting for audience size, mandate or posting frequency. 

• Reports structured for operational teams but consumed by executives.  

Without benchmarks, teams struggle to answer key questions: Is this result good or bad? Is this normal or concerning? Should we act, or hold course? 

An engagement rate of 3.5% may be strong for a policy-heavy account. The same rate may be modest for a public safety campaign with paid amplification.  

There is also often a metric literacy gap. Social Media Managers understand the nuances of impressions and engagement, whereas executives care more about whether the message landed and if public understanding improved. 

Benchmarking bridges that gap. 

Instead of reporting “48,000 impressions”, executive-ready insight could say: "This post reached twice our average audience, supporting our objective of increasing awareness of [policy or service]. The format is worth replicating in the next campaign cycle." 

This connects the analytics to tangible outcomes and increases likelihood of executive understanding and buy-in. 

Practical Ways to Embed Benchmarks

To improve how reporting can be contextualised on an on-going basis, benchmarking must be built into standard practice.  

1. Start with internal benchmarks

   Your most reliable reference points are your own historical data. Compare campaigns against business-as-usual activity, as well as formats against each other. Understand what “normal” looks like in your environment before reacting to short-term variation. 

2. Use sector benchmarks carefully

   Cross-agency comparisons can provide useful perspective, but they must account for differences in mandate, audience size, posting frequency and risk profile. 

   An agency with a broad public-facing remit and a large existing audience is not a useful benchmark for a smaller regulatory body with a specialist audience. Sector data should inform understanding, not dictate strategy.  

3. Focus on trends, not snapshots

   Single reporting periods can mislead. For example, a strong month may follow an unusually weak one.  

   Trend analysis creates stability in decision-making and supports evidence-based recommendations. 

4. Pair key metrics with “So what?” and “What next?”

   One thing we often hear from our clients is that they’re trying to get to the "so what" in reporting – moving beyond describing performance to explaining why the numbers matter. Benchmarking helps provide that context. 

   For example: "Video posts achieved 2.2 times higher engagement than static content this quarter. Short-form explainers appear to improve both understanding and audience interest. The recommendation is to increase short-form video output for policy updates in the next quarter, with a review at the six-week mark." 

   This structure helps turn reports into decision-making tools rather than data dumps. 

Social Reporting is a Continuous Process

Social media reporting has matured significantly over the past decade. Data is abundant, dashboards are accessible, and stakeholder expectations are higher than ever.  

But reporting itself is not the end goal. It works best as a continuous learning loop: 

• define the right questions, 

• interpret trends in real time, 

• analyse patterns over time, and 

• apply benchmarks to guide future decisions.  

For communications teams operating in complex, scrutinised and resource-constrained environments, the question is not whether reporting is happening. It is whether reporting is informing action — shaping content decisions, guiding channel strategy, informing executive advice, and helping agencies communicate more clearly with the Australians they serve. 

Want to get more from your social data? Learn more about how we can work with you here.  

At KINSHIP Digital, we help organisations turn data into insights that matter. Whether we’re helping an agency understand the public it serves or enabling a business to connect strategy to execution, our strength lies in making intelligence practical, embedded in workflows, aligned to decisions, and focused on results.