When it comes to Facebook, the stakes continue to rise. The social media platform surpassed one billion users (that’s billion, with a "b”) at the end of last year – a roughly 25 percent increase from 2011.
With numbers continuing to grow, it’s becoming increasingly important for marketers to pay attention to how their Facebook pages are performing. Is anyone paying attention to what you’re saying? What’s happening with your content? Do people cringe when they see one of your status updates?
The answers to these questions – and MANY more – are on your Facebook Insights page.
If you’re thinking "insights, shminsights” right now, then you are mistaken. Facebook Insights are a veritable treasure trove of data that can help you better leverage the power of the social media platform.
However – there’s a catch. True to Facebook form, the metrics they provide are clear as mud.
To help you wade through the slush, we’ve put together an overview of the most sizzlin’ Facebook Insights and how to understand their value.
To get to your Insights section, visit your page’s Admin Panel. In the middle of the page above the cover image you’ll see the Insights section. Click "See All” and you’ll be taken to the Insights dashboard. Ta-da! Here you will see a variety of graphs, numbers and percentages. The straightforward, easy-to-understand stats you should pay attention to include:
If you continue to scroll down the page, you’ll see a list of all the status updates you’ve made with information about their reach, engaged users, people talking about this and virality.
Here is the 4-1-1 on what these metrics mean, and why they are important to your Facebook page:
The number of people who have seen the post. This includes organic, paid and viral reach. This is important because it measures how far the post has moved across the Facebook community.
The number of unique people who saw your post in the newsfeed, ticker or on the page. They can be fans of the page or not.
This is the number of unique people who saw a story about your page published by a friend. This is a broader statistic than organic reach.
Engagement is one of the most important statistics to Facebook measurement! Why? Because you’re trying to get people to engage with your brand, folks!
Engaged users can be active or passive. Active users are those who like or share something, and passive engaged users are people who simply click on a picture or watch the video you post but have not interacted in a way others could see. Facebook defines engaged users as the unique number of people who have clicked on your post in some way. Engaged fans are more likely to spread the word!
The number of unique people who have created a story from your post. Social Media Examiner calls these people "Storytellers.” This is different from engagement because it means those people did something to show their friends their engagement.
Negative feedback = not good. Negative feedback represents the number of people who "hid” your post. Click on a post’s engaged users number to check out your negative feedback. You’ll find it on the bottom of the pop-up.
You can view the gender, age, countries, cities, locations and languages of your page’s Facebook fans. This helps you create compelling content that fits your page’s demographics, to hopefully spark more engaged users in the future.
And there you have it! While this is only a basic overview of Facebook Insights, there are countless articles and sites that help you understand Facebook metrics, including Social Media Examiner or Facebook Marketing.
And if you’ve got more questions, don’t hesitate to hunt us down!
