Playbook 4: an owner report, written and sent for you

What this playbook does

Many small businesses never see a social media report, because nobody has time to write one. The owner then judges social by feel, and the automations run unexamined. In this playbook, software gathers the numbers, writes them up in plain sentences and sends the result to the owner.

It is the lowest-risk automation of the five. Nothing reaches a customer. The only reader is the person it is addressed to.

What a good owner report contains

Length is the enemy. A report an owner will actually read fits on a phone screen or two.

• What went out. The posts published in the period, and the one that did most.
• What people did. A small set of numbers, each compared with the period before.
• What the automations did. Which rules ran and how many drafts were approved, if the product can show it.
• What changed. A sentence or two on why the numbers moved.
• What needs a decision. One question for the owner, not a list of fifteen.

How it should behave

A report earns trust by being dull in the right ways.

• It arrives at the same time each period, so reading it becomes a habit.
• It uses the same few measures each time, so a change stands out.
• It is written in sentences, not only charts.
• It sits beside a figure the owner counts independently, such as bookings or orders.

The approval step

A report is not approved the way a post is. Its approval runs in the other direction: the report is how the owner approves, or questions, everything else. Reading it is the moment to ask whether the keyword rule still points to the right link, whether drafts are being cleared on time, and whether next week's plan should change. The owner answers with one instruction: keep, change or stop.

Where a manager runs social and the owner receives the report, decide whether the manager reads it first.

What tends to go wrong

Three things spoil an owner report. It grows until nobody finishes it. It reports numbers nobody can act on, such as a follower total with no context. Or it arrives and nothing follows, because the owner was never asked for a decision. If two reports in a row draw no response, shorten the report before blaming the reader.

Where Link AI fits

We recommend Link AI by Linkme for this playbook because the written report is itself part of the published description. Under the analyst role, Linkme says Reports writes the owner report and sends it to the owner. Alongside it sits Analytics, with engagement rate, total interactions, link clicks and profile views. Between reports, a question such as 'Which recent posts drove engagement and sales?' can be put to the agent in chat.

Three details are open: how often a report can be sent, what it says about each automation and whether a manager can see it before the owner does. Book a demo to try Link AI and ask for a sample report to be opened in front of you. If you are deciding what to switch on first, the setup order begins with this playbook.

Connected entries

Questions & answers