How to Analyze Your Facebook Metrics to Improve Your Marketing

Why Facebook Metrics?

The typical Facebook marketer keeps close tabs on two main stats: Post Reach and Page Likes. While you should be conscious of these stats, they should not be central to measuring your marketing goals on Facebook.

It’s more important to understand the number of fans your posts reach, how many of those fans you engage and what types of clicks your posts receive.

While Facebook’s new and improved web Insights does share some great new information with page admins, you need to dig within the export files to find these useful stats.

Accessing the Exports

Before we get to the five metrics you should be checking, let’s cover some basics on how to find them.

From your Admin Panel, click on Insights.

Click on Insights within your Admin Panel to view your web Insights.

Now click the Export Data button at the top right.

Click the Export Data button to view documents of data that aren't shown in web Insights.

You’ll be given a dialog to tell Facebook what you want to export. It’s a tad more confusing right now because Facebook is rolling out the new exports associated with the new web Insights.

Export either your page- or post-level data, choosing either the new or old reports.

Go ahead and select the New export. You can keep the date range as the default, or feel free to expand it as needed. Now, download both the page-level and post-level data—you’ll need to do each one separately.

#1: Fans Reached

I’m listing this metric first because so many marketers obsess over it, but they don’t know what it actually is.

By now, you undoubtedly understand that you won’t reach 100% of your fans with a single post. In fact, you may not even reach 15%.

The typical marketer looks at the total post reach or organic post reach numbers and thinks it represents total number of fans reached. Then they divide that number by total number of fans to get their percentage of fans reached.

Totally wrong!

You find the number of fans reached in your post-level export file in column T of the Key Metrics tab: Lifetime post reach by people who like your page.

The number of fans reached with a post is found within the post-level export.

You determine the number of fans you reach organically by subtracting the total in column V for Lifetime paid reach of a post by people who like your page from column T.

#2: Engaged Fans

Of course, reaching your fans is only half the battle. The true measure of whether your content resonates with your audience is measured in part by engagement.

While it’s impossible to know how many users actually see your post, which is what reach attempts to measure, Facebook does tell you how many users click on your post.

This is the starting point for reach. You know that anyone who clicked on your post saw it. Beyond that, you can’t be sure of the level of engagement.

Find the number of people who have engaged with your post in column W within the Key Metrics tab: Lifetime people who have liked your page and engaged with your post.

View how many of your fans engaged with a post within the post-level export.

Now understand this isn’t the number of people who commented, liked or shared your post (although that is included in this number). An “engaged fan” is anyone who clicks anywhere within your post or generates a story about your post, even if it doesn’t result from a click.

The final five columns of the Key Metrics tab in the post-level export are all related to your fans:

• Fan impressions
• Fan reach
• Paid fan impressions
• Paid fan reach
• Engaged fans

#3: Post Consumers/Consumptions

This is one of my favorite Facebook metrics, but it goes virtually unnoticed.

A “post consumer” is a user who clicks anywhere on your post, regardless of whether it results in a story. This would include things like:

• Comment
• Like
• Share
• Photo click
• Link click
• Video play
• Expand description
• Expand comments
• Click profile of commenter

It’s any click at all. A “post consumption” is the click itself.

These totals are found in columns O and P of the Key Metrics tab in the post-level export.

Consumers and consumptions tell you how often your content is clicked.

Note that there is very little difference between a consumer and an engaged user. Both include any click. The only difference is that when a story is generated without a click, it’s included under engaged user, not consumer.

I prefer the consumer metric because Facebook breaks this stat down into types of consumptions. This isn’t the case with the engaged users metric.

#4: Link Clicks

This metric is one of the main reasons I like the consumers stat so much. Link clicks is a type of consumption.

The second and third tabs of the post-level export break down types of consumers and consumptions as follows:

• Link clicks
• Photo view
• Video play
• Other clicks (defined as any post click that isn’t a link click, photo view or video play)
  

  View number of link clicks within Consumer and Consumption tabs of the post-level export.

One of your goals as a publisher is to drive traffic to your website. Therefore, the link clicks stat is extremely important to you.

If the goal of your post is to drive traffic and it receives 100 likes without a link click, was it successful? Probably not. If you ignore this stat, you don’t know that.

Consider the link click metric a starting point. You should always cross-reference traffic numbers by using URL parameters or link shorteners to track the traffic from your posts.

#5: Positive Feedback

Facebook has rolled out a new stat that is buried within the page-level export. It’s not really a new stat, but it has been renamed.

The page-level export is an enormous file with dozens of tabs. Six of the final seven tabs are dedicated to positive feedback:

• Daily positive feedback by type (users)
• Weekly positive feedback by type (users)
• 28 days positive feedback by type (users)
• Daily positive feedback by type (total count)
• Weekly positive feedback by type (total count)
• 28 days positive feedback by type (total count)

These tabs used to be called Talking About This and Stories. In other words, positive feedback is measured by the comments, likes or shares (described as “links” in the export) generated by users while interacting with your page.

View positive feedback within the page-level export.

While you can no longer track which posts, for example, received the most comments, likes or shares, this is still a nice stat to track when you evaluate the overall impact you make with your Facebook page.

And it’s also nice to counter that dreaded “negative feedback” with a little positivity.

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How to Use the New Facebook Insights

What’s New With Facebook Insights?

Facebook Insights has long been valued by successful marketers as a source of data that can help drive strategic marketing decisions. Until recently, the bulk of that valuable data was accessible only through the export of clumsy, difficult-to-navigate spreadsheet files that often buried key metrics.

Thankfully, Facebook has refreshed the web version of Insights to bring you clear data sets that are presented in easier-to-navigate graphs that are highly dynamic and customizable. New features include:

• Benchmarking
• Easy start and end date slider
• When your fans are online feature
• Best post types feature
• Comparisons vs. general Facebook audience
• Advanced filtering
• Addition of Post Clicks stat

Keep reading to discover more…

Access the New Insights

Access the new Insights from within your admin panel.

From your admin panel, the Insights box is located next to the Get More Likes box. If it looks like the example above, you have the new Insights. Click on See All to launch the Overview.

If it looks like it used to a month or more back, you don’t have it yet. Patience! You’ll get it soon. In the meantime, here’s what you can expect…

Explore the New Overview Tab

Immediately upon arriving at the new Insights, you’ll get an updated Overview screen. This is Facebook’s way of showing you as much data as they can at one time.

The new Insights are broken down into the following tabbed sections:

• Overview
• Page
• Posts
• People

The Overview tab of Facebook Insights summarizes what's going on with your page.

You’ll recall the old Insights had an Overview screen as well. Now, new graphs represent snapshots of your Page Likes growth, Post Reach and Engagement. The most recent posts are still found at the bottom of the screen.

If you aren’t sure what a data set refers to, hover over the title and a definition will pop up.

Hover over People Engaged to get a definition of the data segment.

The definition of an Engaged User has long been confusing to page admins. Many have incorrectly assumed that an engaged user is anyone who likes, comments on or shares a post. In reality, it includes any click at all.

Facebook Insights now clarifies this and breaks the stat into Post Clicks (see below) and Comments, Likes and Shares only (we’ll see this later).

Facebook has added the Post Clicks stat to Insights.

With Post Clicks, Facebook now shows you how many times a post receives “stealth clicks”—clicks that don’t result in a story. Very helpful!

Dig Into the Page Tab

This tab is broken up into three parts:

• Page Likes
• Post Reach
• Page Visits

Before we dig into each of those sections, let’s take a look at two features that will immediately grab your attention.

Start and End Date Slider

Before, choosing a start and end date for graphs and reports was a clumsy process consisting of multiple drop-down menus. Now, you simply grab and drag a slider to change what date range is represented in your graphs.

The new start and end date slider is a big improvement!

Benchmarking

Another welcome change is the ability to benchmark your data to compare the performance of your page between time periods.

Here’s an example showing the increase in average page likes from last period to this period:

Benchmark data to compare average stats between periods.

Now, let’s look into each of the three sections within the Page tab.

Page Likes

This section is broken out into three graphs:

• Total Page Likes Over Time
• Net Likes: What Changed (Unlikes, Organic Likes, Paid Likes, Net Likes)
• Where Your Page Likes Came From (On Your Page, Page Suggestions, Mobile, Your Posts, Others)

The Page tab of the new Insights is broken up into three parts.

These graphs help you understand the trending growth of your page and where your growth is coming from.

For example, within the Where Your Page Likes Came From graph, I can see that a spike was the result of an abnormally high number of likes from Page Suggestions.

Post Reach

This addition allows you to easily compare:

• Post Reach
• Likes, Comments and Shares
• Hide, Report as Spam and Unlikes
• Total Reach

Take a look at the following example:

Post Reach allows you to quickly see how your audience reacts to your content.

Notice that my Hide Post stat spiked at the beginning of the period measured. Some might see this as a sign I did something wrong that I need to avoid.

But the spike also corresponds with a spike in Likes, Comments and Shares, meaning more people saw my content than normal—and more non-fans than normal.

Additionally, my Paid Reach was not at a high rate during this period of time. This could be another explanation for a rise in negative feedback.

Because of these graphs, I’m able to quickly conclude that a rise in negative feedback can be attributed to positive reaction from my fans, not from anything else that I should avoid.

Page Visits

This is where you can quickly evaluate how users interact with content other than posts on your Facebook page.

The Page Visits view of Insights highlights interaction with your content other than posts.

• The Page and Tab Visits graph shows how visits to my timeline and most popular tabs have trended during the selected period.
• The Other Page Activity graph highlights Mentions, Posts by Other people, Checkins and Offers purchased.
• The External Referrers graph gives me a better idea of where the traffic to my page is coming from and shows the biggest referrers are my site, my YouTube videos, Google and Social Media Examiner.

Drill Down Into Content Consumption With Posts Tab

Now it’s time for some of my favorite enhancements to the new Insights.

The Posts tab is broken apart into the following sections:

• All Posts
• When Your Fans Are Online
• Best Post Types

All Posts

This will look largely familiar to you. It’s a similar format as before, but with some new graphics, some color scheme refreshing and new filtering options.

The new Insights allow you to evaluate how your individual posts performed.

My favorite change here is the ability to select different Reach and Engagement metrics.

You can filter Reach by Total Reach, Organic vs. Paid and Fans vs. Non-Fans.

Filter to view different Reach stats within Insights.

The last one may be the most important. Until now, Fans-only stats had to be found entirely within the exports. Which is why most admins: 1) didn’t know that stat existed or 2) incorrectly assumed other stats like “Organic” meant “Fans-only.”

You can also adjust which Engagement metrics you view.

Easily filter within the new Insights to view different engagement stats.

Options include:

• Post Clicks / Likes, Comments & Shares
• Likes / Comments / Shares
• Post Hides, Hides of All Posts, Reports of Spam, Unlike
• Engagement Rate

As mentioned earlier, most marketers were confused by the definition of Engaged User. It includes likes, comments and shares, but it also includes other clicks. The first Post Clicks filter breaks that down.

And if the types of engagement you care about most result in stories, you can easilyview which posts received the most likes, comments and shares.

These are all items that until now were either mysterious or left only to those who braved the exports.

When Your Fans Are Online

WHOA… This is a big one!

This is a completely new data alert here and is not something that was previously made available within the exports in any form.

You can now quickly evaluate what days and times your fans are online most.

This incredibly valuable graph allows you to quickly determine:

• How many of your fans were online each day of the past week
• The average number of your fans who saw any posts per hour

Note this isn’t related to your content, but any content. This is important because it isn’t influenced by when you post, the quality of your post, affinity or anything else. You want to know when your fans are online, and this shows it!

This graph covers the most recent week only, so it’s a sliding scale. You shouldn’t necessarily make big changes based on one week, but keep a close eye on this report.

I’ve started posting much more at 10am, which is a time I previously neglected. I also find it interesting that Monday is the day when the fewest of my fans are online, spiking on Wednesday through Saturday. Not at all what I’d expected!

If you select an individual day, you can also see if there’s any variation in the Times curve for that day. Here is Thursday for me:

Compare how often your fans are online by time and day of the week.

As you can see, the curve remains constant.

Best Post Types

This is a feature marketers have long asked for.

The new Facebook Insights will let you know the best post types based on response.

You can quickly determine which of your post types generate the highest Reach and Average Engagement (split up between Post Clicks and Likes, Comments & Shares).

Be very careful in the way you react to this.

Do status updates generate the highest Reach for me? Yep. But I won’t go on a status updates binge as a result.

Do photos generate the second highest Reach and highest Post Clicks for me? Yep. But that doesn’t mean photos will be my main content choice either.

It all depends on your goals. What’s your desired action? While Reach, Post Clicks, Likes, Comments & Shares are all nice—and all, to varying degrees, help your virality—they aren’t the main focus of my strategy.

My main goal is to get link clicks. I need traffic to my website. And this report does not respond directly to this metric (it’s still buried in the Post Level Export).

Depending on what your goals are, it may tell you everything you need to know. But be careful!

Meet Your Community on the People Tab

This view has actually gone largely unchanged from the old version, but there are some nice little enhancements.

The People tab is broken apart into three different sections:

• Your Fans
• People Reached
• People Engaged

The purpose is to show you the demographics of people (age, gender and location) who like your page, are reached by your content and engage with your content.

Your Fans

This is where you can quickly get insight into who your fans are.

Use this view to better understand who your fans are.

My fans are pretty much split 50/50 between men and women. My most represented group is men ages 25-34, which makes up 18% of my audience.

If you hover over any of those segments, Facebook gives you a little more info.

Compare the percentage of a demographic within your fan base to that across Facebook.

As you can see, men ages 25-34 are more heavily represented within my audience (17.7%) than across Facebook as a whole (14.8%).

My geographical information:

• Most represented country is the US
• Most represented city is London
• Most represented language is English (US)

This is good to know. But to be honest, I’m even more interested in knowing who I’m reaching and whose engaging.

People Reached

The setup of this view is exactly like the Your Fans view. It’s broken down by gender, age, geography and language.

View the people you reach by age, gender, location and language.

Not too surprisingly, the male/female split is still about 50/50. Once again, men ages 25-34 make up the audience I reach most.

Nothing associated with geography and language has changed significantly.

So what about the people who engage?

People Engaged

This is even more heavily slanted toward men (now 53%) and men ages 25-34 (now 21%). So these are the people who not only make up my fan base, but are reached and engaged!

View who engages with your content by gender, age, location and language.

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