Reporting: what, why, for whom

What
A report is not just a document you need to compile once a month/a quarter/a year to send to the management. It is a representation of your work over a period where you see changes compared to the previous report.

Why
When you work non-stop on generating and communicating ideas, you should also find time to look back at the way you have come in order to make your next journey more successful.

For whom
Reports are professional tools in any field, including communications. They are essential for communication and PR specialists, marketers, managers, investors, and partners. For everyone who cares about the results of their work.
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"Obviously, I care about the results of my work. But what exactly should I do with reports?”
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Naturally, the use of reports depends on your tasks and processes within and involving the company. Let us consider some basic examples of using this tool:
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●       Assessing the brand’s market position

As we have already mentioned, reports represent the results of your work. However, the reports also allow you to research the achievements of your competitors and draw a comparison. In this way, you get not only analytics of your work but also understand your overall position on the market. If you look at single company's results, they may seem impressive at first. Yet, compared to competitors, these accomplishments might turn out to be insufficient. Therefore, we should also assess our performance in the context of the market.

●       Monitoring competitors

You are never alone in your attempt to gain the customer's attention (and money) in the market context. Whenever you create an innovative product that solves a certain problem, your competitors will always have an alternative solution at hand.

Reporting tools allow you to assess the performance of any company, including your competitors. We have previously talked about how to use the information you received.

Monitoring competitors: why and how to do it?

●       Dynamics of performance indicators

You should compare your results not only with the achievements of your competitors but also with your earlier performance. To do this, you need to measure progress over different periods. It can be a month, a quarter, half a year, a year, and in some cases even days. It all depends on the campaigns, their dynamics, and the time planned for the activity.
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●       Measuring the results of activities

The dynamics of performance indicators is a repeated measurement that can be applied an unlimited number of times. Campaign measurement is the result of a specific action that lasts for a set period.

Communication can be compared to a marathon divided into shorter streaks. These distances stand for any specific activities of the company. They appear to propel the brand, and the reports allow you to see how much progress you have made.

●       Crisis assessment

You should always prevent or stop a crisis while there is still time. However, if it has already happened, you can view it as an opportunity to learn and investigate the specific case in depth. This will allow you to develop new strategies and avoid mistakes in the future. The report shows the entire process of the crisis development: from the beginning to the disappearance of activity. Thus, you can divide the event into stages, see the reactions in the media and from the audience, and learn more about the behavior of people who are interested in your brand.

●       Budget planning

The report lets you justify allocating the necessary funds to achieve certain goals. You can negotiate budgets with the financial department, management, or investors, for whom the figures in the reports always look more convincing than a generalized description of potential costs or an abstract explanation as to why they need to allocate this particular amount.

Report types

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There are automatic and manual reports:

1. Automatic reports have analytics parameters set by default. This is standard regular reporting for you, the team, and the stakeholders. Automatic reports contain the most popular parameters needed for daily use. For example, in LOOQME, these parameters are TOP-10 news, TOP-10 sources, TOP-10 authors, the sentiment of messages, and others.
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You can also customize automatic reports for your needs. For example, our customers often add notifications for messages with negative mentions. When negative mentions of their brand appear online, they receive notifications on Telegram or in the mail.

2. Manual reports offer more extensive in-depth analysis. Experts tailor them for your company and cover a period you specify. That is, manual reports involve a team of specialists conducting research to receive concrete answers to your queries.

Of course, manual reports can also be different. For example, our customers use content analysis and another one of our products, Industry Watcher. Content analysis helps to establish the image of a company, a person, a business, or a brand in the media space. It includes visibility in the media, media commitment, quality of communications, topics, localization, and other data.

Industry Watcher allows you to compare the media activity of key players in the market, understand current trends, set goals, and determine effective ways to achieve them. You can conduct research on a brand, a company, a person, a CEO, an event, or an info drive. An alternative to Industry Watcher is industry research with a detailed analysis of the media activity of the main players in the industry and the market overall.

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Visual appeal — an important component of reports

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81928149, 139107. Just as you skipped the previous number, our brain avoids excessive numbers in reports. It is easier for us to perceive data shown proportionally, highlighted by colors, or visualized by forms. Incessant consumption of visual content from various sources exacerbates this need. Therefore, not only the content but also its presentation in the report plays an important role.
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Modern reports provided by specialized companies already offer visualization as a rule. Moreover, they are often interactive. That is, by clicking on them, you can see the dynamics of indicators, open links to materials, review different periods, and filter data in real time. These are just some of the LOOQME dashboard features. The main feature of dashboard reports is the visualization of data in real time. Once you have tried this tool, you will discover that it can significantly simplify your work.

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