7 Nov 2025 · 7 min
Ashley Alderson explains which social media numbers CEOs should track: posts, follower growth, engagement, traffic, and UTM-tagged conversions. Use the Boutique Boss Planner pages 30-31 to centralize tracking and hold your team accountable.
Hey, welcome to the series of Five Minute Fridays all about planning, how to plan, how to get more done with your planner and how to use the right checklists and numbers to track so that planning is actually moving the needle in your business. For three series, we're going to dig deep into getting more done and being the CEO that your business deserves, not just a hustling entrepreneur. So let's get into it.
Hey, guys, welcome back to our planning sessions of Five Minute Friday. I want to make sure you guys are set up for success, success in the new year. You've got a planner, you know how to use it. You are tracking all the right things, you've got the right checklists, and your team is also on the same page being set up for success in the new year. So today on 5 Minute Friday, I want to just deep dive into this a little bit more. So you've heard me say many times, hopefully only attract number grows. And that's true. When it comes to inventory or dollars or sales or margin or average order value or whatever it is, we're focused on right, we have to focus on the right numbers that result in the success we're looking for in business. And one of the things I tend to talk to retailers a lot about, especially because of Retail Bootcamp and I do a lot of marketing training inside of Retail Bootcamp is the success or failure of social media. And I do a lot of social media audits for for retailers of all types. And I hear the frustration of I'm posting and nothing's happening. I'm posting and there's no engagement, or I'm posting and there's no sales or I'm spending so much time and I don't know if I'm getting the return that I need. And so I just want to go back to the foundation of only attract number grows. And are we looking at the right metrics to define where success is coming from? So when I go back to using the Retail Planner, which I know many of you have, it's our very own day planner built by small business owners for small business owners, and it comes with all kinds of features to help you plan and track and keep everything in your business in one simple spot. And the tracking sheets that we have for all kinds of numbers in the Retail Planner are pretty in depth. You can track pretty much everything. But the one thing I want to talk about today specifically is social media. So what we do at the Boutique Hub, our team on social media, we have a few team members that are all working on social Media. So we have a spreadsheet and we've had this spreadsheet for a long time that's tracking our followers, our engagements, our click throughs, our traffics, and our UTM codes for conversion on every single channel that we're on, whether it's TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook ads, podcasts, like all of our channels. But we also wanted to do this for you guys. I know that can be a lot to track and we have to do it digitally because our team's all remote. But for you guys, we wanted this in your planner. So again, it's all in one simple spot. So if you're not already using and looking at these tracking sheets in your planner, please pull them open. It's page 30 and 31. And basically what we're asking you is here's all the months of the year. If you're catching the podcast today on YouTube, you can see this. If you're not, catch it later or you know, take a tour of the planner. But basically there's sections for all the months of the year so you can track these numbers throughout all the months. And then I'm going to just lean into Instagram specifically. So the first column is number of posts made, your follower account, your follower growth, and then your total engagement. And so you should be able to go into Instagram at the end of the month and just grab all of these numbers and say, okay, you know, how did this perform this month? And then ultimately in your Google Analytics and your website, you should know what was my acquisition from Instagram, what was my acquisition from Facebook? And then what sales came as a result?
It's here, it's time. Are you ready to start planning 2025? Well, you might have your own day planner, you might have a Google calendar, but let me tell you, I love planning with the official Boutique Boss Plan Planner. The Boutique Boss Planner is a day planner that we created here at the Boutique Hub several years ago. Created by boutique owners for boutique owners. And it's more than a day planner Inside the Boutique Boss Planner is not only your opportunity to operate with a normal day planner with your hours and your time blocks, but it's also a boutique owner's go to resource. Inside, there's inventory tracking, social media tracking, monthly reminders, and to do lists, all kinds of information on how to host a month in review to really track what worked and what didn't in your business this month, but also a planning sheet on how to get ready for the next month in your business. Even if you're going to market. Even if you're getting ready for social media content, there's tools, tips and ideas and checklists to keep you on track and organized all year long. Inside of the Boutique Boss Planner. So check out the link in the show notes for access to the 2025 Boutique Boss Planner or visit BoutiqueBoss store.com.
So we've got to be able to track and in order to see where the success is actually coming from. So same with Facebook, your Facebook group, Pinterest website, email and text. So traffic email subscribers, text subscribers and then app downloads is included here as well. So if you're somebody working with a virtual assistant or you have an intern or you've got someone on staff working on social media, just posting on social media isn't enough. There has to be accountability and metrics and goals that they have for themselves every single month in order to achieve success. So our girls specifically, many of you know Shannon who's done social media at the Boutique Hub for a long time. Shannon's job performance isn't measured on oh good job Shannon. You posted on all the channels this month. Oh good job Shannon. You had this number of posts this month, but it's it's the followers, it's the engagement, it's the traffic sent back to our website and then most recently we've really dug into UTM codes and tracking the conversions from all these locations. So only attract number grows. And this is so true when it comes to social media and marketing. So grab these sheets inside of the Retail Planner. I know we also have some tracking sheets inside of Retail Bootcamp but you guys use this tool, train your staff to use this tool and make sure that social media is a success because only attract number grows. All right, that's it for five Minute Friday you guys, thanks for listening to this planning series that we've been doing. Hopefully we are going to make 2026 your best year yet. So I will see you soon inside of the Boutique Hub. Thanks for listening guys.
That's it for five Minute Friday, you guys. I hope you found some quick, actionable.
Steps you can put into play in.
Your business right away.
As always, if you're not yet a.
Member of the Boutique Hub, I would.
Love to personally invite you to join us.
It's where all of the daily conversations happen.
The up to date what is working now in the industry conversations, the latest.
Trainings, trend reports, discounts, resources and of course access to thousands of wholesale brands.
That you also know and love. So please take a minute, follow the link in the show notes, and we would love to invite you to join.
Us inside of the boutique hub.
