Facebook Insights
What are you doing to build customer loyalty? With all the shiny bells-and-whistles strategies out there, it’s easy to forget about the one that is the obvious choice for low-cost, high-profit results — LOYALTY.
The key to a strategy that builds loyalty is talking to your ideal customer. Before you run a bunch of trial and error surveys — consider using Facebook Insights.
Facebook – The easy way to identify and target your ideal customer
One of the best online research resources at your disposal is Facebook. By having a Facebook page for your business, you can grow your online audience and possibly increase your client base. Unfortunately, like all online marketing, it can be difficult to track your results and easy to waste time. So how do you avoid wasting your valuable time on Facebook posts? The most efficient way is through Facebook Insights. With Facebook Insights, you’re able to determine the demographics of your Facebook fans, which type of posts get the most attention, and more. Understanding these key factors helps you create content that reaches your ideal audience, making everything you do on Facebook effective. Keep reading to learn how to use Facebook Insights or Facebook Surveys.
Accessing the Information
To gather and evaluate your Facebook information, log into your fan page and click on the Insights tab on the top left side of your home page. This is the main dashboard for the Insights page. From here, you get a summary of your page’s activity. This gives you a general evaluation, but for more detailed information, you’ll need to click on each section.
Page Likes
This section allows you to see how many total page likes you have, the number of new likes you’ve gotten in a specific time frame, and your unlikes. You can set the dates as you see fit, in order to evaluate the results of your efforts.
- “Total Page Likes as of Today” – From this graph, you see your total number of likes. The great thing about this graph is that you can click on each date to see the source of your likes (which of your actions contributed) and unlikes, as well as the percentage of likes.
- “Net Likes” – To get this number, Facebook subtracts your unlikes from the number of new likes. This section also shows your organic likes and paid likes for the time frame you’ve chosen.
- “Where Your Page Likes Happened” – This graph shows how you got your likes, including searches, page suggestions, your page, and your posts. Use this to guide your Facebook marketing plan. For example, if you see that a video you shared received more likes than a quote you posted, then consider incorporating more videos into your campaign.
Reach
The next tab over shows you how many people saw your posts during the chosen time frame, and how – if at all – they responded to them. It’s broken down into the following graphs:
- “Post Reach” – This graph displays how many people your posts were served to, both through organic and paid reach. When you click on each date, the details of each post are revealed. These include the date your post was published, a copy of the post itself, how many people were reached, and the number of engagements (likes, shares, comments). From this screen you can also choose to pay to boost that specific post, which allows you to specifically target your audience.
- “Likes, Comments, and Shares” – This graph shows you the average number of likes, comments, and shares you received during the specified time. Analyzing this information allows you to determine when your audience is the most active so that you can schedule your posts accordingly and gain more exposure.
- “Hide, Report as Spam, and Unlikes” – Just like the above graph, this one gives you an average in each category for your desired time period. These actions will actually decrease the number of people you’re able to reach, so it’s just as important to monitor this section as it is the others. Knowing the days people “unliked” your page or hid one of your posts allows you to look at what you posted those days and re-evaluate the effectiveness of those posts.
- “Total Reach” – Exactly like it sounds, this graph gives you a simple visual of how many people were reached by your page each day, both organic and paid. It includes not only your posts, but any activity involving your page, including posts by other people, ads, mentions, and check-ins (it you have a physical location).
Visits
The Visits section of Facebook Insights shows you how many times your information is viewed, both directly through Facebook and through other websites. This section is helpful for finding trends in activity levels of your audience.
- “Page and Tab Visits” – This graph displays how many times each day in a given period your page was viewed. When you click on a date on the graph, it shows the number of visits to your timeline, info tab, and photos tab. It also gives the percentage of those visits.
- “External Referrers” – On this graph, you see how many times people visited your page from an outside website. This is a great way to find out which sites are effectively encouraging people to click back to your Facebook page, and which ones need work. For example, if you have your Facebook information somewhere on your personal website but you aren’t getting many visits from that site, then you should consider repositioning the link to a different area.
Posts
Next, you’ll click over to the Posts section. This is perhaps one of the most useful tools in the Facebook Insights toolkit. On this page, you’ll be able to determine when your fans are online the most, and which post types are the most successful for you. On this screen, you can also see detailed information – such as reach and engagement – for each post you’ve created. Facebook also gives you the chance to pay for a boost of desired posts from this page. By analyzing all the information in this section of Facebook Insights, you can create successful posts and publish them when the majority of your fans are online, therefore increasing your reach and gaining more exposure.
People
The last section of Facebook Insights is the People section. This is your key to online research success. From this screen, you can see exactly who your target audience should be. It shows you what percentage of your fans are women versus men, the percentages that are in each age group, and their locations. Use this information when creating your content. For example, if most of your fans are women in their 30s, then they probably have small children and would relate to posts about potty training or effective discipline measures.
Use Facebook Insights as a Co-creation instrument
The buzzword of 2015 is going to be “co-creation”. This is the idea and practice of involving your customer in the development of future products and services. Market research isn’t a one-sided “I ask, you answer” proposition anymore. It’s a conversation and using the detailed data that Facebook naturally provides is an intuitive way to start this co-creation process.
