Reporting should change the next brief. If a metric never changes what you publish, it is decoration.
Track these four per post
- Engagement rate, not raw likes, so small accounts are comparable.
- Saves and shares, which predict reach better than impressions.
- Clicks, when the post has somewhere to send people.
- Comment sentiment, because replies carry the objections.
Ignore these in weekly reviews
- Follower counts as a success metric — they lag and they flatter.
- Impressions without engagement, which mostly track distribution luck.
- Cross-network averages, which hide that each network behaves differently.
Make the loop short
The value of analytics is the speed of the next decision. Read metrics in the same place you approve posts, and the loop closes in days instead of quarters.