Become Facebook Analytics Expert in 5 Minutes

Are you overwhelmed with all the analytics, technical terms and ways Facebook tracks your performance? If you are, then you are not alone. To help you out we have prepared a very quick intro into Facebook Analytics. In 5 minutes you will learn almost everything you will ever need to know to become an expert (well, somebody who knows about Facebook analytics more than 99% of its users).

Facebook itself brings you Insights, an extraordinary tool that enables you to analyse your Facebook performance, and provides you with various metrics and data. But let’s be honest, if professional marketers are well capable of dealing with large amounts of information, us, ordinary human beings, we get easily confused and lost in all that technical mumbo-jumbo.

Before you get to the point, when formulas, calculations and measurements start making sense, you have to get the basics right. In fact, all the next steps you’ll take in tracking and monitoring your performance will heavily depend on simple notions.

Moreover, there’s no need to be up to the neck in technical terms. Let’s see how we can easily get rid of over-complications and get right to the point!

Facebook Analytics part I: Reach

We assume that you’ve joined Facebook for a reason. If it is visibility that you care about, then Impressions and Reach are the terms you should be aware of.

Impressions

The number of times your page’s content (post) is displayed

Note: Impressions give you an overview of how many times your post has, at least, popped up on someone’s screen, but they don’t translate into a number of people, who saw it. People may see your post multiple times.

For instance, if Mr X saw your update on his feed, and later spotted the same post, shared by a friend, this will count as two impressions.

Impressions later can be divided into Organic, Paid or Viral Impressions. To see the difference, read our in-depth post on Facebook metrics.

To get information on the number of people, who have seen your content, you have to check your Reach.

Reach:

The number of unique users, who have seen your page’s content (post)

Normally, Reach will have a smaller number, than Impressions. Taking our example above, if Mr X sees your update on his News Feed and later his college friend shares that same post, your reach will account to one.

Facebook Analytics part II: User Actions

It’s only logical to assume that next thing you’d like to track on Facebook will have to do with users, interacting with your content. What’s important here is which actions users take, when they see your post. Do they share to bring you more exposure? Do they comment or simply like?

Likes:

The number of times people press a “Like” button on your post.

Likes don’t always indicate whether your post has passed the “quality check”. Instead, they mean that either you can easily catch your user’s attention or that they know/like you well enough to put a “like”. Yet, on Facebook “likes” are probably more valuable than on any other social network, since you can also see what your friends “like” on the News Feed, and here’s your visibility.

Comments:

The number of times people comment on your post.

Comments give you a more in-depth information on how people perceive your content, product or brand. Someone actually took the time and wrote something, which means that here’s your potential to start a journey towards Larry Kim’s “unicorns”,  aka great content.

Shares:

The number of times people share your content

If you are uncertain of what Social Media amplification is all about, “shares” are where you want to look. “Shares” are the easiest option to boost your post without a penny! High share volume means that your content is of great quality or it can also indicate authority. For instance, if Vogue writes a post on a fashion trend, people might share it without much consideration because they value Vogue’s authority. But if Joe-the-blogger-next-door does it, that might be questioned as Joe’s authority in the fashion world is “not as high as Vogue’s”.

Facebook Analytics part III: Engagement

What happens next?

Now it’s time to put all the numbers together and see what’s your overall Engagement and/or Engagement Rate. Don’t worry, we’ll reveal how to measure both, but we suggest that you leave all the heavy lifting to Octoboard. We’ll do all of the counting for you (and for free!) – just because we can and you deserve it!

Engagement:

Shows how much people interact with your content.

Engagement sums up all possible actions your users take when they see your content: likes, comments, shares and clicks.

E= Clicks + Likes + Comments + Shares

The greater the content, the higher the engagement. Wordstream blog is full of advice on how to write amazing content.

But how do you know what is good Engagement?

For a small brand – engagement of 100 can be great, but 1.000 is just not a feasible number. But, is that so? To clearly understand, what’s good or bad in your particular case, Engagement Rate might tell you a more compelling story.

Engagement Rate:

A metric, heavily used in analysing Social Media. Engagement is calculated in relation to your number of followers (or views). Thus, you are able to equally compare accounts of different size.

ER = (Clicks + Likes + Comments + Shares) / Reach

And that’s pretty much it. Understanding of Reach, User Actions and Engagement is more than what most people know about Facebook analytics (just ask the “guru” next door what is the difference between Engagement and Engagement rate!).

Now, when you know more about Facebook analytics than 99% of Facebook users, you can use this knowledge wisely and improve your strategy. In fact, your overall Social Media performance can be adjusted if you treat all of your Social Networks in the same way. The logic behind Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube and other networks is more or less the same. And Octoboard covers 8+ Social Media networks that give you these metrics on a dashboard, plus way more.

Log in and check all your analytics metrics across all networks in less than a minute with our Free Social Media Dashboard!