Given the value of information from reports for practical applications, this tool is still underappreciated. Let's try to show its value for marketers and PR professionals.

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Reporting: what, why, for whom

Whats

It should be understood that a report is not just a document that has to be done once a month/quarter/year in order to send to management. This is a slice of our work for a certain period in which we see changes, compared to the previous report.

Why

When we work hard, are in constant motion, generate and communicate, it is worth looking at the path already traveled in order to more successfully overcome the next distance.

For whom

Reports are one of the tools of specialists in any field, including communications. They are for communicators, PR people, marketers, directors, investors, partners. For everyone who cares about the results of their work.‍

“Obviously, the results of the work are important to me. But what to do with the reports in practice?”

Of course, the application of reports depends on your tasks and processes within and around the company. Consider a few basic examples of using this tool:

• Evaluation of the position of the brand in the market

As we have said, the report shows a slice of the results of our work. However, not only ours — the reports also allow us to conduct research on the achievements of competitors and compare them with ours. In this way, we not only get the analytics of our work, but also see how it fits into the market picture. If you look at the results of just one company, they can seem pretty good. But compared to competitors, these achievements will be insufficient. Therefore, it is also worth evaluating the work in the context of the market.

• Competitor Overview

Regarding the context of the market: we are never the only ones who claim the attention (and money) of the client. Even if we create an innovative product that solves a particular problem, our competitors have other ways to solve it.

Reporting tools allow you to make a cut of the results of the work of any company, including our competitors. Earlier we told how to use the information received.

We follow competitors: how and why
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• Dynamics of performance indicators

It is worth comparing your results not only with the achievements of colleagues, but also with your own previous data. In this case, we measure progress over different time intervals. It can be a month, quarter, half year, year, and in some cases even days. It all depends on the campaigns, their dynamics and the time for which the activity is designed.
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• Measurement of the results of activities

The dynamics of performance indicators is a repetitive measurement in which we have no completion. Measurement of the results of campaigns is the results obtained as a result of a specific action that has a certain time period of duration.

Communications is a very long marathon divided into short distances. These distances are any activities of the company. They seem to push the brand forward, and the reports allow you to see how far it has been able to move forward.

• Crisis analysis

We try to prevent or stop the crisis in time, but if it has already happened, it is worth using it as an opportunity to learn and investigate a specific case as much as possible. This will allow you to develop new strategies and not repeat mistakes in the future. The report shows the whole process of the development of the crisis: from the emergence to the disappearance of activity. Therefore, we can divide the event into stages, see the reactions of the media, the audience and learn more about the behavior of the people who are interested in our brand.

• Budget planning

The report allows you to justify why exactly this amount is necessary to achieve certain goals. We talk about budgets with the finance department, management, investors, for whom the indicators in the reports always look more convincing than just descriptions of potential expenses and explanations in words why we really need to put this specific amount in the budget.

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‍What are the types of reports

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Reports are automatic and manual:

1. IN automatic reportsanalytics settings are set by default. This is standard regular reporting for yourself, team, stakeholders. Automatic reports contain the most popular parameters necessary for daily use. For example, in LOOQME, these parameters are TOP-10 most popular news, TOP-10 sources, TOP-10 authors, message tonality, and others.
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Such automatic reports can also be customized for your own needs. For example, our clients often add notifications about messages with a negative tone. When material with a negative about their brand appears on the net, they receive it in Telegram or in the mail.
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2. Manual Reportsare much deeper and more voluminous. They are created by experts specifically for your company and cover a period of time specified by you. That is, manual reports are when a team of specialists conducts research for you and gets specific answers to your questions.

Of course, manual reports are different too. For example, our clients use content analysis and another product is our Industry Watcher. Content analysishelps define what a company, person, business or brand looks like in the media space. It includes media visibility, media engagement, quality of communications, topics, localization and other data.

Industri Watcherallows you to compare the media activity of key players in the market, understand current trends, form goals and identify effective ways to achieve them. The subject of research can be a brand, company, person, CEO, event, information drive. The other kindIndustri Watcher are industry studies with detailed analysis of the media activity of the main players of the industry and the market in general.

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Content analysis as an info-space research tool

Visual accessibility is an important component of reports

81928149, 139107. Just as you didn't read the previous number, so our brains avoid dozens or hundreds of digits in reports. It is easier for us to perceive data when it is shown in proportions, highlighted in colors, visualized with shapes. And the constant consumption of visual content hardly exacerbates this need. Therefore, not only the content, but also the appearance of the report also plays an important role.

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How to use visual analytics?

Modern reports provided by specialized companies usually already have visualization. In addition, they are often interactive. That is, by clicking on them, we can see the dynamics of indicators, open links to materials, review different periods, filter data in a moment. For us, this is part Features of LOOQME dashboards. The main feature of reports in the form of dashboards is that all data is visualized in real time. Therefore, if you have the opportunity to try this tool — it will greatly simplify your work.

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