\n \n Learn how you can easily build social media analytics dashboards with Rival IQ <\/p>See the video <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n \u201cDashboard\u201d can mean a lot of things depending on who you ask, so let\u2019s get specific.<\/p>\n For the purposes of this social analytics<\/a>-focused article, a social media dashboard<\/b> is a visual, real-time snapshot of your most important social media metrics. It pulls data directly from your social platforms and turns it into easy-to-digest charts and graphs, so you can quickly see what\u2019s working, what\u2019s not, and how your performance is trending over time.<\/p>\n To be clear, a social media analysis dashboard is NOT a laundry list of every social metric you can get your hands on. Editing is really importnant (<\u2013editing joke) because too much data can easily overwhelm you or your coworkers and become unhelpful.<\/p>\n At a minimum, your dashboard should make you say \u201cHells yes!\u201d to the question, \u201cDoes this clearly show how my social media strategy is performing and progressing over time?\u201d Bonus points if you can answer the same to the question, \u201cCan my boss understand it too?\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s easy for everyone in marketing (including me!) to get caught up in the doing and forget about the \u201chow\u2019s<\/i> it doing?\u201d That\u2019s where dashboards earn their keep:<\/p>\n Ultimately, a well-designed social media analytics dashboard isn\u2019t just a reporting tool but a communication<\/i> tool. It turns your hard work into something stakeholders can actually see, understand, and invest in.<\/p>\n One of the biggest advantages of social media dashboards is that there\u2019s no single \u201cright\u201d setup. You can build different dashboards tailored to what you\u2019re trying to understand, who you\u2019re reporting to, and how closely you need to track performance.<\/span><\/p>\n Dashboards usually fall into a few common categories. Think of these as starting points. You can go deep on one or combine several views depending on your goals.<\/span><\/p>\n For answering: \u201c<\/span>How are we doing overall?<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n This is your high-level snapshot. It pulls together core metrics across one or more platforms so you can quickly assess performance and progress over time.<\/span><\/p>\n You\u2019d typically include:<\/span><\/p>\n This type of dashboard is useful for regular check-ins, monthly reporting, or leadership updates. In other words, when big-picture insights matter more than granularity.<\/span><\/p>\n For answering: \u201c<\/span>What\u2019s actually working?<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Once you know how things are performing overall, the next question is usually <\/span>why<\/span><\/i>. A content-focused dashboard lets you move from the macro to the micro by breaking performance down post by post.<\/span><\/p>\n This view might highlight:<\/span><\/p>\n The goal here isn\u2019t just to report the numbers. You want to identify patterns. This kind of dashboard helps you decide what to double down on (and what to stop spending time on).<\/span><\/p>\n For answering: \u201c<\/span>Is this worth the money?<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re putting budget behind social, you\u2019ll want a dashboard built specifically around paid performance. This keeps investment-focused metrics front and center.<\/span><\/p>\n Some common metrics:<\/span><\/p>\n Having these metrics in one place makes it much easier to spot underperforming campaigns early and to justify spend when things are working.<\/span><\/p>\n For answering: \u201c<\/span>How do we stack up?<\/span><\/i>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Social performance doesn\u2019t exist in a vacuum. A competitive dashboard adds context by showing how your metrics compare to others in your space. After all, <\/span>anyone can have a million Facebook fans or Instagram followers, but you\u2019re only reaching those fans successfully if you\u2019re doing it better than your competitors.<\/span><\/p>\n The basic premise of <\/span>social media benchmarking<\/span><\/a> is identifying key competitors and leaders in your industry and then keeping an eye on their social metrics over time to check against your own stats.<\/span><\/p>\n If you\u2019re Pepsi, you\u2019re probably crawling Coke\u2019s social presences on the regular to see how their page likes and key engagement metrics (<\/span>likes<\/span>, shares, comments, etc.) compare to your own performance. The very same goes for smaller or more local competitors.<\/span><\/p>\n Depending on your goals, the metrics might include:<\/span><\/p>\n A competitive benchmarking dashboard is especially valuable for strategy discussions, quarterly planning, or explaining results to stakeholders who want to know how your brand compares.<\/span><\/p>\n Pro tip<\/b>: <\/span>It\u2019s pretty safe to say we\u2019re obsessed with benchmarking <\/span>here at Rival IQ \u2014<\/span> so much so that we make a big, free report every year tracking Facebook, Instagram, <\/span>X (formerly Twitter)<\/span>, and TikTok performance across top industries like fashion, media, and <\/span>auto<\/span><\/a>. To see how your industry is doing at a glance, <\/span>check out our <\/span>Social Media Industry Benchmark Report<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n And to keep things current and interactive, we also have <\/span>live benchmarks<\/span><\/a> for top industries, including the most popular hashtags, top-performing posts, posting frequency, and more. Use these for a current snapshot of how you measure up to your competitors.<\/span><\/p>\n No matter which type of dashboard you build, the same rule applies: every metric should earn its place. Instead of trying to track everything, choose metrics that help you answer questions and make informed choices.<\/span><\/p>\n For example:<\/span><\/p>\n Ultimately, when your dashboard is aligned with a specific purpose, it becomes much easier to turn data into decisions (and explain those decisions to stakeholders).<\/span><\/p>\n By now, you know what a social media dashboard is and what you might want to track. The next question is: how do you actually build one?<\/p>\n At a high level, the process looks something like this:<\/p>\n Before you touch any tools, get clear on what the dashboard is supposed to answer. Is it meant to show overall performance, content effectiveness, or competitive position?<\/p>\n Your goals will determine:<\/p>\n Don\u2019t shy away from creating multiple dashboards. After all, a dashboard built for a CMO will likely look very different from one built for a social media manager optimizing posts week to week.<\/p>\n This is often the hardest part. Each social platform has its own interface and metrics \u2014 and pulling data manually from multiple sources can be time-consuming and error-prone. Connecting directly to platform APIs is the best approach, but this requires technical expertise and ongoing maintenance.<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t want to deal with that complexity, many teams use a platform that\u2019s already connected to social network data and keeps it up to date automatically. (Psst, this is where analytics platforms like Rival IQ<\/a> come in).<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve got your sources, you need a way to visualize the data.<\/p>\n Broadly, teams tend to choose between business intelligence tools or dedicated social media platforms. Business intelligence tools, like Tableau, offer deep flexibility but can come with steep learning curves and setup time. Meanwhile, social media management<\/a> and analytics tools are easier to use, though some tools limit what you can customize or compare.<\/p>\n The key thing to look for is flexibility: the ability to build dashboards around your<\/i> goals, not just pre-set reports.<\/p>\n A strong dashboard should be understandable at a quick glance. That means:<\/p>\n Titles, labels, and date ranges matter more than most people realize. If someone can\u2019t quickly understand what they\u2019re looking at, the dashboard won\u2019t get used.<\/p>\n The best dashboards update automatically and are easy to share with stakeholders. Once it\u2019s live:<\/p>\n Don\u2019t be afraid to tweak as needed. Dashboards are there to make your life easier, so they should evolve as your strategy does.<\/p>\n With Rival IQ, you get one centralized platform that pulls in all of your social media data, so you can access on-demand analytics without jumping between tools or spreadsheets.<\/p>\n Our dashboards are a flexible collection of charts, tables, and visualizations designed to help you tell a specific data story. You can create multiple custom dashboards<\/a> for different audiences or goals, and access them anytime from the Custom Dashboards section in our platform.<\/p>\n We put the power in your hands. You can:<\/p>\n From there, you choose how your data is displayed. Put any metric you want from any and every channel into your dashboard for the ultimate bespoke analytics display. We support a wide range of chart types<\/a>, including time series charts for trend tracking, bar and stacked bar charts for comparisons, and more advanced visualizations that compare multiple metrics at once.<\/p>\n You also have control over how metrics are calculated and displayed, including current values, previous-period comparisons, and relative or absolute change. With hundreds of customizable metrics, this is the best way to report on that one weird Facebook reaction your CEO really cares about or dialing up your cross-channel reporting to 11.<\/p>\n We\u2019re talking about visualizing data \u2014 so it only makes sense to show you what that actually looks like. Let\u2019s walk through an example custom dashboard built in Rival IQ for a full competitive landscape review<\/b>.<\/p>\n In this dashboard, Costco is the focus company and part of a competitive landscape that includes brands like Sam\u2019s Club, H-E-B, Target, Walmart, and more. The goal here was to get a fast, clear read on how Costco is performing across social and how it stacks up against the competition.<\/p>\n Right at the top, the dashboard kicks things off with a cross-channel performance snapshot for Costco. You\u2019ll see key metrics like total audience size, number of posts in the selected time period, total engagement, and engagement rate by follower. Each stat includes a percentage change from the previous period, so it\u2019s easy to spot wins, dips, and trends without pulling multiple reports.<\/p>\n From there, the dashboard zooms out to show cross-channel competitive metrics across the entire landscape. Audience size, posting volume, total engagement, and engagement rate by follower are all laid out in clean, visual charts. Total numbers and percent changes sit right next to each metric, making it simple to see which brands are leading \u2014 and how the Costco (in bold<\/b> as the focus company) compares at a glance.<\/p>\n The dashboard also includes a snapshot of top-performing posts across the landscape. This is where you can quickly see the kind of content<\/i> that audiences love. Each post preview can also be clicked and expanded for deeper metrics, so it\u2019s easy to go from big-picture insights to specific content examples in seconds.<\/p>\n Because this is a complete<\/i> landscape review, the custom dashboard then breaks things down by individual channels \u2014 Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. These sections are perfect for zeroing in on performance on a specific platform and uncovering channel-level insights you might miss in a purely cross-channel view.<\/p>\n The best part? None of this is locked in.\u00a0 can add new charts, remove ones you don\u2019t need, and reorder everything to match how you want to tell the story. Whether you\u2019re building a quick executive overview or a deep-dive for your social team, custom dashboards in Rival IQ make it easy to create a view that actually works for you.<\/p>\n The answer to this question, of course, depends on the nature of your job. If you\u2019re a one-person shop, your reporting needs will no doubt look very different than those of a 25-person marketing team with a dedicated analytics lead. Our high-level recommendation? Report as often as you have the chance to share your findings and inform future strategy decisions.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re still working on establishing a reporting rhythm, here\u2019s our breakdown:<\/p>\n These reports are all about the big picture. Here are some questions you want to be asking:<\/p>\n This level of reporting is all about the 30,000-foot view, and much like a long flight, it\u2019s good to put some time and brain power into these periodic reports.<\/p>\n Monthly reports bridge the gap between the granularity of weekly reports and the strategic review of quarterly or yearly reports. It\u2019s great to keep an eye on the content, channels, and post types that are doing well. Don\u2019t forget to compare completed campaigns against each other and against the goals you set for them.<\/p>\n Monthly reports can also be good for a quick check-in on your social media health: Did you lose a bunch of followers this month? Might be good to dig in deeper if the answer is \u201cyes.\u201d<\/p>\n Weekly reports are great for tracking short time periods and content bursts. Check out how this week\u2019s posts fared against last week\u2019s, or look at the performance of your newest campaign. This is all about the 30-inch view, and unless your whole job is social analytics, we bet you\u2019re not spending more than 30 minutes collecting this information.<\/p>\n Remember: Don\u2019t just sit on these analytics! Use them to show your boss and team that your strategy is working, and to refine your strategy and content so it resonates strongly with your social media audience<\/a>.<\/p>\n The good news: Since these channels want to keep you on their platform, they make it pretty easy for you to access your stats and see how your posts are performing.<\/p>\n Facebook houses its analytics in two different places: Facebook Insights <\/b>and Meta Business Suite<\/b>. While Facebook Insights focuses exclusively on your Facebook Page\u2019s performance, Meta Business Suite is the \u201cumbrella\u201d platform for managing both Facebook and Instagram.<\/p>\n Both sources report much of the same data, so you can take a look at your analytics in either. You\u2019ll be able to toggle the date range and dive deeper into all sorts of metrics in order to better understand how your posts are faring.<\/p>\n However, if you want to export your Page\u2019s insights data<\/a>, Meta Business Suite will be the one to go to. Simply head over to the Results<\/b> tab and press the export option in the top right corner of each metric. This will be how you get your data out of Facebook and into your computational software of choice (like Excel or Google Sheets) so that you can build your dashboard.<\/p>\n For the full rundown of accessing and measuring your Facebook performance, check out our ultimate Facebook analytics guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n Accessing Twitter analytics<\/a> has gotten a bit more complicated since the platform became X. While all accounts used to have access to their performance data, as of writing, only X Premium subscribers have access to account analytics. Verified Organizations \u2014 accounts with the gold checkmarks<\/a> \u2014 can also see their analytics.<\/p>\n Another option that X promotes is to convert your personal account into a Professional Account<\/a>, which comes with helpful features for promoting your business, including a performance dashboard called Professional Home. Unfortunately, the roll-out of that has been a bit slow so not everyone has access<\/a>.<\/p>\n The good news? Once you\u2019ve gotten past the gates, so to speak, and secured access to your analytics, the data is available for export in .CSV format.<\/p>\n Instagram really wants you to use it on your mobile device, and requires you to be a business account<\/a> (instead of an individual account, though verified accounts are an exception) to see any meaningful stats.<\/p>\n Fortunately, once you meet that criteria, you can access a fair amount of information about your activity, content, and audience by tapping the Professional dashboard <\/b>bar under your profile description or navigating to Settings and activity <\/b>(the hamburger menu in the top right corner of your profile) and then Insights<\/b> . Thankfully, Instagram\u2019s Graph API<\/a> allows third-party tools (like ours) to display your stats in the desktop app or web browser of your choice.<\/p>\n Like most other social platforms, TikTok requires you to have a business account in order to see your analytics. Luckily, all you need to do is toggle \u201con\u201d the Business account<\/b> option in your settings to get access. Once that\u2019s done, simply navigate to your Business Suite<\/a><\/strong> and then click the Analytics <\/b>tab. It should look a little something like this:<\/p>\n As you can see, you can easily export your insights with a click of the Download data<\/b> button in the top right corner \u2014 a handy feature you\u2019ll need to build your dashboard.<\/p>\n Want more details on how to approach TikTok\u2019s analytics? We go more in-depth in our handy TikTok analytics reporting guide<\/a>.<\/p>\n Okay, we\u2019re biased: We like seeing all our social analytics in one spot. Social media analysis software can make a marketer\u2019s life easier so she doesn\u2019t have to go channel by channel to access her stats. Here\u2019s what we want in a social media analytics app:<\/p>\n Curious how we walk the talk? This group of self-professed data nerds loves reporting on our social media progress. Here are a few ways the company keeps an eye on social success:<\/p>\n Our marketing team reports on our social footprint in the prior month to the whole team. (For a full write-up on metrics at Rival IQ and how it relates to pizza, read on here<\/a>.) We take a close look at our engagement rate by channel month over month and also strive to identify any content, content types, or paid campaigns that we should emulate next time around.<\/p>\n For example, we\u2019ve noticed that our audience seems to love data as much as we do, with our most popular posts often featuring our reports on engagement, so we’re excited to add even more of that into our editorial calendar<\/a>.<\/p>\n Let the robots do some of the work for you by having them crawl your social progress and your competition instead of having to do it manually. Automated social media reports<\/a> from within our app are customizable, so if we want to track a particular campaign or arch nemesis, we can choose how often to get alerts<\/a> in our inboxes.<\/p>\n Things might get a bit technical, so we\u2019re stashing definitions of some commonly used social media analysis terms here so we\u2019re all on the same page.<\/p>\n Engagement:<\/i> Measurable interaction on social media posts, including likes, comments, favorites, retweets, shares, and reactions<\/p>\n Engagement rate<\/i>:<\/i> Engagement interactions divided by total follower count<\/p>\n \n \n Find out what is a good engagement rate on social media. <\/p>Learn more <\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n<\/span><\/p>\n Channel:<\/i> The app you\u2019re using to share your content or connect with your audience (Example: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Google+, etc.)<\/p>\n Followers: <\/i>Anyone who\u2019s chosen to like, follow, or otherwise actively opted into your content and activity on a social channel<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s a social media analytics dashboard, anyway?<\/h2>\n
Why social media dashboards matter (and what they\u2019re actually for)<\/h2>\n
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Types of social media dashboards<\/h2>\n
1. A performance overview dashboard<\/h3>\n
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2. A content performance dashboard<\/h3>\n
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3. A paid social or campaign dashboard<\/h3>\n
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4. A competitive benchmarking dashboard<\/h3>\n
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![\"Snapshot](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/image6.png\")
<\/p>\nThe most important metrics to focus on<\/h2>\n
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How do I build a social media dashboard?<\/h2>\n
Step 1: Define your goals (and the metrics that matter)<\/h3>\n
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Step 2: Bring your social data together<\/h3>\n
Step 3: Pick your visualization tool<\/h3>\n
Step 4: Design your dashboard<\/h3>\n
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Step 5: Automate, share, and iterate<\/h3>\n
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Custom social media dashboards in Rival IQ<\/h2>\n
![\"Custom](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/image1-700x682.png\")
<\/p>\n\n
![\"Chart](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/image5-700x369.png\")
<\/p>\nQuick example: A custom dashboard for a complete landscape review<\/h3>\n
![\"Complete](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/How-to-build-a-social-media-dashboard-1-700x452.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Cross-channel](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/How-to-build-a-social-media-dashboard-2-700x424.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Facebook](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/How-to-build-a-social-media-dashboard-3-700x420.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Modal](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/How-to-build-a-social-media-dashboard-4-700x380.png\")
<\/p>\nHow often should I generate reports from my dashboard?<\/h2>\n
Yearly and quarterly: Big picture<\/h3>\n
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Monthly: Diving deeper<\/h3>\n
Weekly and bi-weekly: Going granular<\/h3>\n
How to locate your social media analytics natively<\/h2>\n
Facebook<\/h3>\n
![\"Facebook\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Social-Media-Dashboard-1-700x382.png\")
<\/p>\nX (formerly Twitter)<\/h3>\n
Instagram<\/h3>\n
![\"Instagram](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Social-Media-Dashboard-2-350x721.jpg\")
<\/p>\nTikTok<\/h3>\n
![\"TikTok](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Social-Media-Dashboard-3-700x540.png\")
<\/p>\nAggregated social media analytics<\/h2>\n
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Use case: How do we report on social media analytics at Rival IQ?<\/h2>\n
Monthly full-team metrics meetings<\/h3>\n
![\"Top](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Social-Media-Dashboard-19-700x340.png\")
<\/p>\nEmailed reports<\/h3>\n
![\"Rival](\"https:\/\/www.rivaliq.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Social-Media-Dashboard-20-700x568.png\")
<\/p>\nQuick reference guide: social media analytics glossary of terms<\/h2>\n
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