So, you've done all of this work on your Facebook Page - you've identified your target audience, you're pushing out content, people are seeing your posts.
But how do you know it's all working, and how can you change things to make them work better?
Facebook has a free measurement tool called "Insights" that will give you these answers. You can click on it right from the top bar of your business Page:
Once inside the "Insights" area, different tabs reveal different ways to look at your results, including:
- Overview
- Likes
- Reach
- Visits
- Posts
- People
Let's take a look at how this all works.
The Overview tab shows a date range. Within it, you'll find Page Likes (Total Page Likes and New Page Likes).
When we click on Likes, we seen an overview of Likes in their many forms.
The following screenshot shows "Net Likes," plus a chart for Unlikes, Organic Likes, and Paid Likes. You can even scroll over the info to see exactly what happened on a certain day.
For example, in the screenshot below you can see that the user has highlighted Sep 3, 2015, when this Page garnered 15 new Likes.
Organic vs. Paid
"Organic reach" is the total number of unique people who were shown your post through unpaid distribution. "Paid reach" is the total number of unique people who were shown your post as a result of ads.
In the example below it shows 15 Paid Likes on Sep 3, 2015.
Post Reach
Post reach is the number of people who've seen your post - your post counts as "reaching" someone when it's shown in their News Feed.
Once you click on to the reach tab, you'll see both organic and paid reach. You can scroll over the chart to get specifics from a particular date.
In the example below, there were 184 Organic Likes on Aug 31, 2015.
As you can see, on Sep 3, 2015, this Page got 246 Paid Likes. It's very easy to navigate around in this tool; you only need to move your mouse around to highlight events that happened on different dates.
Page Visits
"Visits" refers to the number of times your Page was viewed. In this example, Page Visits, Info Tab and Photos Tab are displayed. Facebook Insights measures each area of the page and you can see the data easily here.
Facebook Posts
This screenshot shows a report on the performance of posts. In this example, the report displays every post, including the image used, copy, type of post, and the post's targeting, reach, and engagement. This view makes it easy to get an overview of what's working and what isn't.
The "boost post" button is conveniently located in this view as well. Facebook makes it easy to boost the posts you want to have more visibility.
You can choose any post from the list and click on it for more detailed information. On the left. we have the post itself. On the right, you can see additional insights, such as the number of people reached, plus the number of Likes, comments, and shares.
In Facebook's latest update, you can get a lot of this information right on your timeline. However, this data also lives here in the back-end, providing a more focused approach that will likely be more useful in your workflow.
In the Videos section of your Page Insights, you can see the following information about videos your Page has published or shared:
- The number of times videos were viewed.
- The number of times videos were viewed for 30 seconds or more.
- Your Page's most viewed videos.
To see Auto-Played vs. Clicked-to-Play or Unique vs. Repeat views, click Organic vs. Paid at the top-right of the chart, and then select the data you want to see.
People on Facebook
The "People" tab is one of the most important tabs for you to regularly check, especially in the initial stages of setting up your Facebook Page. This tab lets you get insights into the specific demographic characteristics of those that are following you. It's important to know whether these demographics actually match those of your ideal target audience. Hopefully there's a close match, but if not, you'll have to revisit your audience targeting settings and tweak them.
For example, the screenshot below shows that visitors to this Page are largely women (87%), of medium (25-45) age, who mainly reside in New York City. This matches the target market thi owner has been working on, therefore this data validates that her Facebook marketing is on target and is working as intended.
That's great to know, but what's equally interesting is that this Page also has some viewers coming from the European market. Perhaps this business should consider whether they have a product or service that might be appealing enough to promote specifically for the European market. This is the kind of data-driven insight that they may otherwise never have discovered on their own.
The bottom line with Facebook Insights is it's a free and easy tool that lets you easily visualize your campaign's performance. If you've set things up correctly, chances are you won't have to spend too much time on it, but you should be checking it regularly to ensure you're on track - and if you're not,you can pivot your Facebook marketing accordingly.
Facebook Reports
If you want to dig deeper into the data, you can export your reports for further analysis via Excel, Google Docs, or another spreadsheet program. You can use those reports to measure any kind of metrics you need to track and compute your ROI.
Key Takeaways
- Visit your Insights area on a regular basis
- Make sure you're hitting your target audience
- Observe how your posts are performing
- Use Reports on an ongoing basis to make sure Facebook is working for your business objectives
- Analyze Insights reports with an eye to discovering new markets