Facebook was the social media platform to really set the stage for all other social media platforms to come, and has had a huge influence on the way the businesses now market their products and services. Over the years, the way we gauge success on Facebook has changed dramatically, but it has remained to be a very important tool.
Not only do you need to know what social media management Facebook metrics to track, but also what each of these metrics actually tell you. The metrics for each social media platform are different, but they all tell you basically the same thing - the size and engagement of your audience. Here, I will highlight the metrics which are important to track for Facebook, and what these metrics actually tell you.
In order to track you or your company's Facebook metrics on a monthly basis, you may consider using a chart like the one on the right in Excel or Google Spreadsheets, which highlights each of the important Facebook metrics including:
Likes:
- the amount of Facebook users which have "liked" your Facebook page
- Status Updates: the number of posts you have posted to your Facebook page
- Customer Comments: the amount of times customers or fans of your Facebook page have commented on you Facebook posts/status updates. It is important to note the nature of these comments (ie. whether they are positive or negative) and always respond to them.
- Shares: the amount of times Facebook users have shared one of you Facebook posts
- PTAT/People Talking About This: PTAT is a custom metric calculated by Facebook Insights which takes into account several different acts of engagement with your Facebook page (see Infographic on the left). This is one of the most important metrics to pay attention to as it tells you the number of users which engage with at least one of your updates or page in general by liking, sharing, etc.
- Average Post Engagement: This is calculated by the following formula
To learn about more Facebook metrics to consider when gauging your Facebook campaign's success, view the following articles:
- AllFacebook, "INFOGRAPHIC: Suggested Changes to Facebook's Engagement Rate Formula"
- Simply Measured, "Facebook Metrics Defined:Engaged Users"
- Simply Measured, "Facebook Metrics Defined:Engagement Rate"
- Simply Measured, "Facebook Metrics Defined: Reach"
- New Media Force, "[Infographic]: The Most important Facebook Business Page Analytics Metrics (besides likes)"
Some free tools which you may use to gauge your Twitter metrics are:
- Wildfire Social Media Monitor
- Hootsuite analytics
- Facebook Insights
- Likealyzer
- AgoraPulse
- Quintly
I hope these tips on Facebook metrics have helped you! Please comment on what your experience with using any of these free tools and/or tracking Facebook metrics are. Join the discussion and leave your comments below.
Lastly, please feel free to contact us directly. You can always send us a message via our contact form or email me directly at: shaina at wildstory dot com.
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