When it comes to analytics, Facebook Insights are among the most complicated. Google Analytics take the cake in that category, but Facebook gives you a surprisingly broad spectrum of information.
Let’s have a look at what’s important to know about when it comes to your Facebook Page Insights, and what you can learn from them.
It’s worth mentioning that when it comes to Facebook numbers, there are two things you’re looking for: first off, overall growth of your page, meaning, the number of “likes” your page has. Secondly, Post-level engagement, meaning, which of your posts get likes, shares or comments, and how many. You need both to be considered successful. A page with 10,000 likes and no post engagements is not successful.
Facebook Insights gives you five categories: Overview, Likes, Reach, Visits, Posts and People.
Let’s break ’em down.
Overview: this is a snapshot of how your page is performing this week. It gives you the 30,000 foot view: your over all Page growth, your Post’s reach, and your engagements.
Page Likes: next up, Facebook breaks down your overall growth in terms of Page Likes. It shows you growth over the long term (the last month) and the short term (your likes and unlikes over the last week, and how many you had per day). Finally, it shows you where those likes came from: on your page, on your posts, on mobile, or on someone else’s posts. What you can learn: go back and look at the days where you see spikes in either direction (multiple likes or unlikes). What kinds of posts did you put up those days? Could be an indication of something that’s working, or something that isn’t (in the case of an unlike).
Reach: with Facebook’s algorithm, the reach of each post is limited. However, you can increase your post’s reach if your post gets Likes, Comments and Shares. The more engagement, the more reach. What you can learn: again, look for the spikes. You’ll notice two major ones on this chart: one at the beginning, and one at the end. Go back and look at those posts. Give it your best guess as to why those posts were so popular, and then attempt to reconstruct a similar post and see if you get the same result.
Visits: tells you which of your tabs people visited while on your FB page. This doesn’t interest me nearly as much as the next graph, though, which shows me where my page traffic is coming from. You’ll notice the bulk of it comes from my website, but some of it is also coming from Google. What you can learn: updating your FB page regularly (ie: a minimum of 1x per day), can immensely help your Google SEO.
Posts: this is the place I spend the bulk of my time. There are two big lessons to be learned from these analytics. First: what’s the best time of the day to post to your page? and second, what kinds of posts work the best? What you can learn: my readership, it appears, is most active and online at 4 pm. I should try posting then and see if I get more love.
Below that, Facebook breaks down every single post, showing you how much reach your post got, as well as what kind of a post it was, and how much engagement it got. Look for the spikes, and play reverse detective, then try to recreate your success.
People: because, when you sign up for FB, you have to give them quite a bit of personal information, Facebook’s ability to find out the demographics of your page likes is kinda impressive. You can learn whether your fans are male/female, what their ages are, and even where they live and what languages they speak. Pretty impressive. What you can learn: fit the medium to the message. If your product/service is targeted at 18-yr-olds, and your prime FB audience is over 45, you have a problem! How can you make your page come in line with your target demographic?
You can also download detailed Excel spreadsheets of your data if you really, really want to go over it with a fine-tooth comb and super nerd out!
Until next week… and Twitter.