Those who use social media professionally
are often under considerable pressure to accurately and authoritatively
demonstrate the ROI of their social media activities.
Social Media Managers may need to pull analytics data from several sources
and deliver them to multiple stakeholders,
each with their own distinct priorities, KPIs, and timelines.
Hootsuite Boards was designed to make the time-consuming
and complicated process of analytics reporting
as easy as possible.
A Board is a fully customizable collection
of real-time analytics.
Unlike an analytics report, which is a static snapshot of information,
a Board is a continuously updated display of data.
Each Board has a flexible, interactive interface
that lets you drag-and-drop an unlimited number of “widgets”,
which are individual displays of a specific metric.
Like widgets, the number of Boards you can create
with Hootsuite Analytics is unlimited.
Once you’ve created your Boards, the complicated task of reporting
is essentially on autopilot- anyone who needs the data
can have immediate access to it.
When getting started with Boards, you have the option
of using existing Templates, which help you get up and running quickly,
OR Custom Boards, which you can customize to include the exact widgets you want.
Templates are preset collections of metrics, organized by network;
they are especially handy if you’re still figuring out
what analytics are best to monitor.
Pre-built Templates can collect analytics in three areas:
‘Publishing’, or how your content is performing,
‘Audience’, which gives you insight into your fanbase,
and Engagement, which accounts for actions
taken on your posted content.
Templates are fully customizable with just a few clicks.
This means that you can add or delete widget, change date ranges,
change up the networks being analyzed,
or even switch up the arrangement of widgets within the Board.
Data can also be displayed in a variety of “visualizations”,
like Line Charts,Tables, or Treemaps.
This is useful for better spotting trends,
or matching your social analytics to existing reporting formats.
Custom Boards, on the other hand, are intended for those
who have a solid idea of the metrics they need to monitor.
A Custom Board lets users start with a blank slate,
and manually add the metrics they need.
These type of Boards are especially useful for creating
different sets of analytics data for different stakeholder groups,
each with their own specific needs.
Say you’re a social media manager who needs to supply performance metrics
to company directors, the social media team,
and the content team.
For Directors, you might create a Custom Board
highlighting executive level metrics in areas like channel health,
traffic driven, and brand conversation.
For the social media team, you might create a Board
with finer-grained, actionable insights,
that will help you optimize your team’s social media efforts.
For example, engagement on posted tweets, published tweets,
or brand conversation by country.
For the content team, you might create a Custom Board
with widgets displaying how the content they are producing
is resonating with the target audience.
So, you might include things like total clicks, clicks by country,
or reaction topics.
Because Boards are unlimited, you can experiment
as much as you want until you strike on a configuration
that works for your specific situation.
To get started with Boards, simply click on the Boards tab
under Analytics in your Hootsuite Dashboard.