We continue our look at social media and the importance of checking on how it is performing for your business and now turn our attention to Facebook.
While originally Facebook was set up for online social use it has increasingly become a marketing platform for businesses and in particular online retail.
When looking at the results of any business marketing carried out on a Facebook business page it is important to keep in mind your customer profile and location.
How to find Facebook analytical information
You must be logged in to see the information and you need to be on the business page.
Facebook analytics are called “insights” and they can be accessed by clicking on the link in the white menu bar at the top of the business page. All the information is given in visual and numerical form making it easy to follow what has been happening on the page.
The first option is an Overview, which covers the last seven days, although this can be re-set to show the last 28 days.
The Overview will show the reach, which is the number of people to whom your posts have been distributed. It also shows the performance of the five most recent posts on the page, giving the reach and interaction (the number of people who have engaged with each post) for each.
If you have added pages to watch, perhaps of your competitors, the Overview will show the total page likes, number of posts and engagements and the percentage change, either positive or negative for each watched page.
The Overview gives a snapshot of performance over the chosen period.
Having gained an impression it is possible to look in more depth at the reach, page views, actions on page, posts, people (by age and gender) and if the business page has been set up as a local business the local analytics provide more in-depth information about hourly, weekly and overall behaviour of people following the business page who are within 50 miles of the business.
It also gives information about the age and gender of the people who have visited your page and what time of day they did so.
Using the information
It is worth remembering that insights are a snapshot of behaviour for seven or 28 days back from the day on which you are looking and therefore to pick up any trends it will be necessary to revisit insights regularly. How to use the information to adjust marketing activity will be the subject of a future blog.