By now I’m sure you’ve either asked or been asked one of the following questions: “Why should my business be involved in social media?”… “Is my Facebook page really generating more sales?”… and “What’s the ROI of paying someone to manage my presence on social media?” These are all very important questions, but unfortunately they are often very difficult to answer with concrete numbers, unlike the same questions about more traditional advertising methods. Until now.
Previously, these questions were usually answered with a narrative explaining how social media differs from traditional media and that included the words “fans,” “followers,” “comments,” “likes,” “retweets,” and “engagement.” These words however, never conveyed concrete figures that could be turned into ROI. And, inevitably, a few weeks or months later the same questions were being asked.
These conversations are now changing thanks to the new Facebook Insights. Think of it as website analytics for your Facebook page. The new Facebook Insights offers a barrage of data including how many fans you have, how many friends your fans have (the potential number of people you could reach if fans share your content), how many people are talking about your page, your page’s weekly reach, and how each of these numbers have changed from the previous week. You can also see what content was the most effective by looking at the reach, engagement, talking about, and virality numbers for each of your posts.
Digging deeper, the Likes, Reach, Talking About This, and Check-ins tabs break the data down by demographics so you know if you are reaching the right audience. These pages also let you know how you reached people (organic, viral or paid), daily breakdown of page views and unique views, the most popular tabs on your page, external referrers, and how people are accessing your page. You can break all of this information down into whatever time frame you prefer for accurate comparisons.
Taking all of this into consideration you should be able to present some pretty concrete numbers on whether or not your efforts on Facebook are reaching the right people and whether or not they are responding.
Demonstrating conversion rates with these numbers is still going to require some extra effort (like asking new customers where they heard about your company, offering deals only on Facebook and measuring the response, etc.), but it’s a good start. But you should not only be using these numbers for reporting… use them for improving as well. Take a look at what kind of content you get the best response from and do more of that. You should constantly be honing and refining your online strategy (not just on Facebook) by looking at the numbers (Insights, Analytics, or any other reports you generate).
I would suggest that you open up your Facebook page right now and click on the Insights tab. Take the guided tour and if you’re looking for more information and ways to use the data check out the Facebook Insights Guide for Page Owners.
how-to tips and product recommendations. For now, let’s assume that John Doe has a Google account. On his personal search page he sees a few of the people in his circles have +1’d a particular brand of paint and added photos to Google+ of remodeling projects they have completed using certain floor tiles. John Doe also added The Home Depot to his circles and sees posts from them about bathroom remodeling tips including videos they posted to YouTube.
