How to Use Boards in Hootsuite Analytics

Learn how to build custom boards with Hootsuite Analytics.

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Hootsuite is the world's leading social media management platform with over 12 million users including 800+ of the world's Fortune 1000 companies.

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.