A screenshot of a custom Sprout Social report measuring the effectiveness of a product launch campaign.
2. Include an executive summary
Once your report leaves your outbox, there’s no telling where your data will end up. Going unread happens. Things get worse when reports get shared beyond who they were intended for. Your albania phone number data recipients may have meant well when sharing. However, this often creates follow-up questions and confusion. You might be asked to explain data you already explained in your original report. This is yet another waste of time and energy. That’s why sharing reports with context is so important. Data on its own doesn’t mean much. For example, an uptick in brand mentions could mean people are loving your service. But it also could mean people are making complaints. To make sure your data is always framed with the big picture in mind, include an executive summary. Executive summaries provide a brief overview of report findings. This allows you to control your data narrative.
A gif showing a custom Sprout Social report that uses text blocks as executive summaries to weave context throughout the data.
Features in Sprout like text elements available in our custom reports are huge here. You can use them to add in context that showcases the full ROI of social. This includes benchmarks, data from Google Analytics and more. These details make reports more valuable by being accessible and actionable. Anyone seeing it can understand it without having to interpret the metrics themselves.
Let’s assume your team is fully aligned on your KPIs and business impact. You know what your progress means and how it all ladders up into business goals. However, anyone beyond the marketing department doesn’t live and breathe social metrics. They may understand how an engagement differs from a click.