How to Use Facebook Insights to Get the Most Out of Your Facebook Page
Time to Read: 3m 45s
The latest iteration of analytics for Facebook brand Pages, called Facebook insights, isn't nearly as daunting as it looks. If you have a Facebook Page for your brand or company, you have access to Facebook insights. By understanding the data available to you via insights, you can better understand your fans and the type of content that helps you meet your goals. I've outlined the benefit of the Overview, Likes, Reach, Visits, Posts, and People Tabs below. 
Overview This dashboard will give you a quick overview of the last 7 days' data compared to the previous weeks as well as a drill down of your 5 most recent posts' metrics. I suggest glancing at this tab often to give you a quick idea of your Facebook Page's activity when you're not prepared to dig into more detailed data. Likes Before I dig into this tab's features, it's important to communicate that only chasing Facebook Likes is not an effective or meaningful social marketing strategy. While more Likes suggest a larger potential audience for your content, your Facebook Page's posts only appear in some of your fans' news feeds, based on Facebook's secret algorithm which is a post for another day. That being said, Likes are definitely a metric to watch, but no matter how many Likes you have, it's much more meaningful to have fans that see, and engage with your posts. This tab, however, will show you detail regarding what drives users to Like, or also UnLike your Page. Use the daily data, Total Likes, Net Likes, and From Where to help you best interpret what is working. I suggest always keeping a record, or schedule of your posting habits in order to draw the most meaningful conclusions. Reach In order to see the value of this tab, you must understand what Facebook is reporting to you. Reach on Facebook refers to the amount of Facebook users who view bits of your content. Increasing your overall reach equals more traffic to your Facebook Page, an increase in Likes, and likely traffic to your website. I suggest you use this tab to drill down on your posts' audience reach, organic, and where applicable, paid efforts. You can filter this data by specific date, or date range. You may also learn on this tab that certain types of content is often hidden, reported as spam, or prompts your audience to unlike your Page. I'd love to see the "Hide, Report as Spam, and Unlikes" portion of this tab for some of the brands highlighted on this Facebook Page! Visits This tab outlines which tabs on your Facebook Page are viewed. You may find that moving or featuring various tabs, based on your goals, may make a larger impact than you thought. Here you can also view if your page is mentioned, your page's posts, and check-ins and purchased offers, if applicable. Perhaps most valuable on this tab is where your External Referrers are coming from. Experiment with clicking on various areas of the graph, on Others, for example, to get more detail on what these Other websites are. Posts In the Posts tab, you can view detailed metrics on recent posts, but also the average engagement based on what type of posts (photo, status, shared link) drive the most clicks, comments, shares, and subsequently have the highest reach. This can help you take out the guesswork of what content performs the best. The "When Your Fans are Online" portion of this tab can also help you cater when you share your Facebook Page's posts. People Use the "people" tab to view the gender, age, location, and language of your fans as well as the demographic for Facebook users that "Like" your Page. If 92% of your audience is 18-24 year old males, you'll obviously craft different messaging than you would if your audience was women in the 35-44 range. You can also filter this demographic data down to users you've reached and the users who engage with your content. If you're a small business with a brick and mortar location, then checkin data may also be useful to you. Have fun digging into your Facebook insights. If you'd like more control, or would like to look at a time frame longer than 89 days, I suggest using the "Export Data" feature in the top right area Facebook insights. Have you Liked Ecreative on Facebook? Still have questions about how we can help you reach your online marketing goals? Get in touch with us.
Overview This dashboard will give you a quick overview of the last 7 days' data compared to the previous weeks as well as a drill down of your 5 most recent posts' metrics. I suggest glancing at this tab often to give you a quick idea of your Facebook Page's activity when you're not prepared to dig into more detailed data. Likes Before I dig into this tab's features, it's important to communicate that only chasing Facebook Likes is not an effective or meaningful social marketing strategy. While more Likes suggest a larger potential audience for your content, your Facebook Page's posts only appear in some of your fans' news feeds, based on Facebook's secret algorithm which is a post for another day. That being said, Likes are definitely a metric to watch, but no matter how many Likes you have, it's much more meaningful to have fans that see, and engage with your posts. This tab, however, will show you detail regarding what drives users to Like, or also UnLike your Page. Use the daily data, Total Likes, Net Likes, and From Where to help you best interpret what is working. I suggest always keeping a record, or schedule of your posting habits in order to draw the most meaningful conclusions. Reach In order to see the value of this tab, you must understand what Facebook is reporting to you. Reach on Facebook refers to the amount of Facebook users who view bits of your content. Increasing your overall reach equals more traffic to your Facebook Page, an increase in Likes, and likely traffic to your website. I suggest you use this tab to drill down on your posts' audience reach, organic, and where applicable, paid efforts. You can filter this data by specific date, or date range. You may also learn on this tab that certain types of content is often hidden, reported as spam, or prompts your audience to unlike your Page. I'd love to see the "Hide, Report as Spam, and Unlikes" portion of this tab for some of the brands highlighted on this Facebook Page! Visits This tab outlines which tabs on your Facebook Page are viewed. You may find that moving or featuring various tabs, based on your goals, may make a larger impact than you thought. Here you can also view if your page is mentioned, your page's posts, and check-ins and purchased offers, if applicable. Perhaps most valuable on this tab is where your External Referrers are coming from. Experiment with clicking on various areas of the graph, on Others, for example, to get more detail on what these Other websites are. Posts In the Posts tab, you can view detailed metrics on recent posts, but also the average engagement based on what type of posts (photo, status, shared link) drive the most clicks, comments, shares, and subsequently have the highest reach. This can help you take out the guesswork of what content performs the best. The "When Your Fans are Online" portion of this tab can also help you cater when you share your Facebook Page's posts. People Use the "people" tab to view the gender, age, location, and language of your fans as well as the demographic for Facebook users that "Like" your Page. If 92% of your audience is 18-24 year old males, you'll obviously craft different messaging than you would if your audience was women in the 35-44 range. You can also filter this demographic data down to users you've reached and the users who engage with your content. If you're a small business with a brick and mortar location, then checkin data may also be useful to you. Have fun digging into your Facebook insights. If you'd like more control, or would like to look at a time frame longer than 89 days, I suggest using the "Export Data" feature in the top right area Facebook insights. Have you Liked Ecreative on Facebook? Still have questions about how we can help you reach your online marketing goals? Get in touch with us.