Deciphering Facebook Insights

Is virality something youreach for with your engaged users

who are talking about this?*

*Note, that sentence is not supposed to make sense

Disclaimer:This is not a comprehensive look

at all aspects of Facebook Insights.There may be more useful tidbits

outside what is presented herebut this is what, in my experience, I have found to be the most helpful.

Getting some Insight

Statistics! All the way across the sky!

STOP

Goals before Tools• Who are you trying to connect with?

• What information do you want to communicate?

• Why are you using a Facebook page vs another tool?

• How can your fans find your Page and its content?

• When will you post and how often?

Facebook:

Demographics

Translation:Who likes you?

Start with a baseline• General US Facebook user stats as of

12.3.2012 (via checkfacebook.com)

46%54%

female male0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

13-17 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65+

Age

Find your likes

Nope, don’t need to look at this yet

Compare your audience

And where they are from

• Does your audience live locally?

• Do you have more than one predominant language?

Who are you talking to?

• Are your gender/age demographics significantly different than the general averages?

• Is this who you want to be interacting with?

• Can you tailor your posts based on where your main audience lives?

• Is there a new audience for your Page?

Facebook:Reach

Translation:(How) are

folks*seeing your posts?

*This includes anyone (fans, friends

of fans, ad viewers) who saw any of your

content (posts, comments, photos, ads) anywhere on

Facebook (News Feed, on your Page,

Ticker)

Didn’t FB just change this?

http://dangerousminds.net/comments/facebook_i_want_my_friends_back

http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2012/10/breaking-news-area-school-upset-with-facebook-promoted-posts/

Yes...well, not really

• In Sept. 2012 they adjusted EdgeRank to reduce spam.

• Only the “best” content is seen by the fans who are most likely to interact with it.

• Reach percentages haven’t changed significantly, you never got 100% before

http://techcrunch.com/2012/11/07/killing-rumors-with-facts-no-facebook-didnt-decrease-page-news-feed-reach-

to-sell-more-promoted-posts/

http://mashable.com/2012/11/15/facebook-conspiring-marketers-to-buy-ads/

The solution?

(Continue to) produce interesting, shareable,

engaging content.

If it’s good, folks will see it (and share it)

The Reach Tab:Yet anothergiant page of charts and

graphs

And really only one bit of useful information

How did they find you?

Reach Tab:What folks were looking

at on your Page, and how they got there

Likes Tab:Where folks

clicked “like” for

your Page

Note for later: what post

caused this?

Facebook:Virality & Engagement

Translation:Do they like

your content?

Time to examine your posts

Details, details

Number of peoplewho saw the post

in any format (fan’s News Feed, friend’s comment

or like, etc.)

Reach

Number of people who clicked on

your post or something in it.

Engaged Users

People who shared,liked or commented

on your post.

Talking About This

Note: This is a breakdown of the “Stories Generated” referenced in the “Engaged Users” metric

Of the folks who saw this post,how many liked it

enough to interact?

ViralityTalking About This

Reach

Figure out what works

• What type of content is most popular? (Chances are it’s photos and videos)

• Does a topic always generate interaction?

• Does a topic spur unlikes or spam tagging?

• Is there a particular time or day of the week that you get more interaction?

Looking back in time

• You can manually export data to an Excel spreadsheet or CSV in 500 post increments going back to July 19, 2011

Moral of the StoryInteresting Content = Good Insight(s)

• Let the statistics serve as a guide, don’t live or die by them

• 100 engaged users > 10,000 indifferent fans

• Create posts that people want to share

Thank You

• Keep in touch:@tb623 or @wm_creative on Twittertlbroa@wm.edu (or tiffany.beker@wm.edu)

• Official Facebook Guides:Facebook Page Insights: Product Guide for Facebook Page owners

Building your presence with Facebook Pages: A guide for educators

Questions to Ask• Who are you trying to connect with?

• What information do you want to communicate?

• Why are you using a Facebook page vs another tool?

• How can your fans find your Page and its content?

• When will you post and how often?