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A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Insights

admin — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:38:56 +0000

You have created a Facebook Fan Page. Now what? I bet these questions come to mind: “Is my page a success?” “Who is engaging with us?” “Is our engagement effective?” “Does our content strategy work?”

The Facebook Insights dashboard will help you answer some of these questions. As defined by Facebook, “Insights provides Facebook Page owners … with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners are better equipped to improve their business with Facebook.”

So what’s the best way to use this relatively new tool? We’ve outlined some steps below that should have you measuring Facebook engagement in no time.

Note that only page administrators can view Insights data for the properties they own or administer.

Examine a Wide Range of Data

There are two types of Facebook insights:

User Insights: Total page Likes, or a number of fans, daily active users, new Likes/Unlikes, Like sources, demographics, page views and unique page views, tab views, external referrers, media consumption.
Interactions Insights: Daily story feedback (post Likes, post comments, per post impressions), daily page activity (mentions, discussions, reviews, wall posts, video posts).

The question then becomes: “What do you want to track and measure?” There is a lot of data offered, but you want to sort through it and identify what information is meaningful and will help you make decisions about your engagement and content strategy. If that data is not readily available, you might want to do some manual calculations to derive the numbers you’re looking for.

Below are the insights I recommend you pay attention to and track.

Monthly fan size growth: Record the number of fans (or “Likers”) you have on the first of every month to see what your growth looks like. I’d say if you are growing organically and you have 10 to 13% monthly growth, you are doing extremely well. That is probably the highest organic growth number anyone can achieve. You can even go more granular and calculate weekly growth. Whatever you decide to do, make sure to watch for the spikes in fan growth and try to identify what contributes to those spikes.

The average number of Likes or comments: These are your engagement measures. If you know the average number of times fans interacted with you for every single post, you will be able to identify which discussions are of more interest to your fans. Watch for unusual spikes or drops in this number. I love this metric because it is extremely helpful in making immediate decisions in your content strategy and changes to your editorial calendar. Increase the number of posts around the topic your fans are more engaged with and decrease the number of posts around topics they are not interested in.

Unlikes and attrition rate: The fact is that you will always have some unsubscribes, no mater how great your engagement is, but hopefully it is just a small number. I usually just watch for spikes in the unlike numbers. You want to try and correlate them with the activity on your page and understand why people are leaving your page. It is rather hard to nail down the exact reason, but if there is an unusual spike, you will usually have a pretty good idea.

The simple attrition rate formula is:

Daily Unlikes / Daily Fan Count

This metric will tell you how many of your fans are leaving your site. It is normal to have small constant attrition over time.

Demographics: No matter what your objectives are, you can always find the demographics data useful: the gender of your fans, their ages and where they are from.

Page views: I like this metric because it helps you identify the number of returned fans. If you take the number of page views and subtract the number of unique page views, you will see how many of your fans are actually coming back to your page. You can also look at the Daily Active Users metric.

Mentions: This is the number of times someone tagged you in their post. The reason why this metric is important is because it is the easiest way for your fans’ friends to click through to your page. Every time someone tags you, the name of your Page appears as a link. It is much easier for someone to click on that link and learn more than to search for your Page manually. One of your goals should be to increase the number of mentions by your fans.

Tab views: This is the new metric Facebook implemented a couple of months ago. If you have multiple tabs on your page, it will tell you which tab gets what percentage of traffic. This metric will help you decide on whether you would want to keep or maybe get rid of some of your tabs. This is especially helpful as you can only have six tabs visible on your page at one time, and this data will help you prioritize accordingly.

Referrers: Another new metric that tells you where the traffic to your page comes from. You want to increase exposure to your page on the sites that bring you the most traffic.

Impressions: If your page is over 10,000 fans, you will see the number of times your post was viewed –- impressions. This metric is not exact since every time someone’s page refreshes, it counts as an impression. This number is usually a little overblown, but can show you how many times your post has been seen.
Some of these metrics require constant manual tracking and analysis, which is a big downside. However, the above metrics will help you make decisions about your engagement and content strategy that would allow more effective interactions with your customers

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Social Media Is The Top Online Activity!

admin — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:17:28 +0000

New research finds that Americans spend more time on social media sites than doing any other online activity. The Nielsen Company recently reported in its study What Americans Do Online, that 23% of the time Americans spent online is on social media sites, up from the 16% last year. The survey also found that e-mail has dropped significantly in its share of online time, from 12% to 8%, making it the third most popular online activity (second was online games at 10%). “What’s surprised me is that there was a fair amount of hesitation toward online social media, probably because it was unfamiliar to a lot of businesses,” says Steve Straub, principal at Integrated Marketing Group, Inc.

He says that companies should follow their buyers wherever they go, even into unfamiliar territory they fear may be a flash-in-the-pan fad. “It’s irrelevant what the venue is,” he says. “If that’s where they’re engaged, that’s where they’re at, that’s where you go.”

Companies are beginning to notice, and they are increasing the amount of online social media they incorporate into their sales and marketing plans. Gizmo Group is one company that has boosted its social media marketing in the past nine months, taking to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, with several hundred fans, followers and connections on each (respectively). Rick Casner, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing, says Gizmo moved to these platforms, while moving away from traditional e-mail marketing, in order to be where the customers are.

“I’m not really looking for an exact return on this, I’m just looking for another mechanism to stay in front of my clients and prospects, so when they are ready to order, in part because of the effort we’ve put into our social marketing, they’ll remember to use us,” says Casner. “There’s so much clutter in people’s inboxes nowadays, and the read rate is way down from where it was years ago, that you’ve got to look toward other mediums that are more current, more today, than e-mail.”

Norma Polcek, president of Samco Promotional Products agrees that social media is growing in importance for her company’s promotions, as the Nielsen data reflects. Polcek says she prefers the “soft-sell” approach of social media, versus e-mail marketing, which can sometimes seem like it is bombarding prospective clients with ads. But sensing the company could improve its approach, she recently hired a consultant to help enhance the company’s Twitter and Facebook presence. “We’ve been doing social media for awhile,” Polcek says, “but now we’re becoming more efficient at it.”

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Brands Loosen Grip on Social Media

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:38:12 +0000

More companies are handing over the control of their social media activity to external agencies in a trend that concerns even those who earn business out of it. Marketers are grappling with the best way to handle social media and many are turning to their communication partners for guidance.

Media agencies, public relations firms, digital agencies and advertising agencies are handling social media issues for brands. But the scramble is prompting concern that outsourcing the task puts greater distance between brands and consumers, and ultimately dilutes the message.

Nic Hodges, the head of innovation and technology at the media agency Mediacom said although media agencies would try to own the social media space, this was not always in the client’s best interests. “Ultimately I would like to see my clients own the messages they’re putting out there. Getting the tone and message right is best done by the brand team,” he said.

Increasing numbers of advertising agencies are also helping clients handle social media. Douglas Nicol, of the Sydney agency The Works, said: “We would encourage clients to take social media in-house long term, because social media isn’t an area that should be outsourced.

”After all, if you put layers between the consumer and the brand then it defeats the purpose of social media, which is to provide unfettered access between the two. A brand has to live and breathe their social media message for it to mean anything.”

Even a digital agency agreed that while a third party could be useful in setting up social media, a brand needed to handle it on its own. The founder of the digital agency Amnesia Razorfish, Iain McDonald, sets up and monitors social media for clients but does not believe a third party should handle the message. An agency should only work in an advisory role, he said.

But a public relations professional believes the industry has the skills and knowledge to manage the social media message for clients. Michelle Hutton, the chief executive of Edelman Australia, said that the message in social media – much like traditional public relations – could not be entirely controlled. In the past three months Edelman had hired three people to work specifically on social media.

“Marketers are looking for a more cohesive approach to communications, and PR agencies are picking up lots of work in the social media space. After all, social media is word-of-mouth, and word of mouth is what we do.” Kerry Field, a media buyer who is a partner in innovation at the media agency MindShare said collaboration was critical: “It’s very short-sighted to think that one function of a client’s marketing team should own and run the entire process.”

Mr Nicol said brands that wanted to retrieve control of their social media needed to set ground rules. The agency is developing a social media policy for clients. “Some brands aren’t ethical in the way they use social media and they need to consider implementing a policy. I believe that there is a danger that if social media isn’t used ethically that we could all ultimately destroy it.”

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There Has Been A Growth In The Use of Social Media By The Over-50s

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:55:27 +0000

The number of people over the age of 50 using social media has nearly doubled in the last year, according to new figures.

Data from Pew Research showed that senior internet surfers can still be targeted through websites such as Facebook and Twitter, with 42 per cent now being members of these portals.

This is up from 22 per cent in 2009, with many looking to reconnect with old friends from school and share links, photos, videos, news and status updates.

As expected, young adult internet fans, aged between 18 and 29 continue to be the heaviest users of social networking sites, with 86 per cent signed up and updating their statuses regularly.

“The use of Twitter and other services to share status updates has also grown among older users – most notably among those ages 50 to 64. While just five per cent of users ages 50 to 64 had used Twitter or another status update service in 2009, 11 per cent now say they use these tools,” said the report.

Direct marketers using Facebook and Twitter still need to make sure they are working from accurate data to produce the best results, according to Jeremy Jones, marketing director for Datanomic.

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Grocery Stores Increase Social Networking

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:06:56 +0000

The U.S. grocery industry is increasing using social media practices as part of a plan to gain market share, according to new data released by Greensboro-based Pace Communications.

Pace’s U.S. study “reveal a titanic battle between Wal-Mart and Target for the mantle of top supermarket chain with the most social media followers,” said John Cass, head of digital marketing at Pace Communications, in a statement. “Each has added over 500,000 followers to Facebook in the last four months.”

While national grocery chains are openly embracing social media, regional chains are slower to adopt, according to a press release.

“If there is one broad statement I can make about custom content grocery marketing, it’s that for national companies like Target, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and Wal-Mart, there’s an understanding of the value of creating content on the Web and social networks for both their search engine rankings and customer engagement across the Web,” Cass said in a statement.

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86% of 18-24 Year Olds Have Used Social Media to Discuss TV Shows While Viewing

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:58:09 +0000

Name the hottest TV show, and I’m pretty sure you can get on Twitter and find a trending hashtag about the show while it’s on. You can find anything from random comments about certain scenes, to serious discussions about the show’s plot or characters on Facebook, to the actual actors on the show chatting with viewers while the show is on.

I call it “Boob-Tube Networking” because it’s not just enough to watch TV in order to find out who’s getting kicked off or out of the house/island/team/hot tub this week. Folks who tune in weekly must to interact with others who are also tuning in.

There is a more technical term to describe this type of behavior – “Media Stacking”

According to a YouGov study (who also coined the term), 86 percent of the 18-24 year olds polled stated that they have participated in another social media activity centered around the show they were currently watching. Surprisingly, 56 percent the above 86 percent of those polled still text while watching TV while the rest hit up social media sites like Twitter and Facebook to chat about their favorite show. I would have assumed that a larger portion of those polled would gravitate towards social media sites to join in with a larger group, but it seems as if chatting amongst a closer-knit group (via text messages between others only in their contact list) is preferred.

As technology gets better, access to that technology grows as well, so it’s no surprise that those polled also want the programs themselves to become more interactive. As a result, there is definitely a market for TV manufacturers to integrate social networking into their sets, and for TV shows to offer additional interactivity into their shows. I could very well see folks flocking to their sets to vote to keep their favorite character (who is always in the “bottom three”) alive in a special TV audience vote with the votes getting tallied and a result dished out in real-time.

In a not so distant future, look for popular shows to be housed completely on social networks where you will have to be a member of that particular social network in order to gain access to the show where the viewers actually control the destiny of their favorite characters via Twitter hashtags, Facebook likes, and Diggs.

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MySpace Surrenders to Facebook

admin — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 21:46:58 +0000

MySpace has surrendered to the domination of Facebook, and users can now send their content on MySpace out to Facebook (and Twitter) with just one click. The functionality allows you to push photos, status updates, links and videos out to a Facebook profile or Page, and also Twitter. The move is not surprising considering MySpace’s shrinking popularity, and Facebook’s increasing dominance with its growing user base of over 500 million.

Despite MySpace’s declining popularity, however, one advantage it had were the specially designed MySpace pages for musicians and celebrities. But with the increasing popularity of Facebook Pages, MySpace may have been feeling the pressure to finally tap into Facebook. With Facebook-MySpace integration, musicians, celebrities and regular users can still maintain their identities on MySpace, but reap the added advantage of sending content to Facebook as well.

How MySpace-Facebook integration works

To get started with MySpace integration click on the settings icon to the left of the share button on your MySpace homepage. A drop-down menu will show you checkboxes for Twitter and Facebook. Just select the services you want to integrate with MySpace, and then you must authorize MySpace to have access to your Facebook or Twitter profiles.

Once that’s done, a pop-up on MySpace appears to verify your settings, and then you’re ready to go. As you can see in the above image MySpace may be rolling out the ability to update your MySpace status from Facebook in the near future. But that functionality is not ready yet. You can, however, send updates from Twitter to MySpace and vice versa.

MySpace integration with Facebook (and Twitter) is pretty straightforward. You just share whatever you want in MySpace’s Facebook-like update box, and your content will be sent to the social networks you authorized. Any shared content sent to Facebook from MySpace (such as photos or videos) appears as a status update on your Facebook profile with a link back to MySpace. You can share almost any shared content from MySpace you want with the exception of MySpace’s mood updates.

Once you authorize cross posting with Twitter and Facebook, these options will be enabled by default. So if you happen to be posting something that you don’t want to be shared across multiple platforms, make sure you uncheck Facebook and Twitter integration in the settings panel.

MySpace’s new functionality is part of yet another renewed effort by MySpace to maintain relevance in an increasingly Facebook-dominated world. The second-most popular social network in the U.S. recently refreshed its look that appears to borrow heavily from Facebook including a similar newsfeed and status update box.

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How I Use Social Media to Promote My Blogs

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 16:37:10 +0000

Building on work from ChrisBrogan.com this post shares how I promote my blogs using social media and other websites

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Online Marketing Through Social Media Networking

admin — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 09:37:53 +0000

Communication is no longer mundane exchange of information. It involves a good mix of text, sound, graphics and animation. The use of multimedia in communication is efficacious way to express and be ahead of co- competitors. Multimedia development services help in empowering business by utilizing the advantages of multimedia technologies. A multimedia rich presentation makes greater effect on audience with better impression of showcased material.

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James Surowiecki: The Moment When Social Media Became The News!

admin — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 12:57:57 +0000

James Surowiecki pinpoints the moment when social media became an equal player in the world of news-gathering the 2005 tsunami, when YouTube video, blogs, IMs and txts carried the news — and preserved moving personal stories from the tragedy.

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Robert Scoble: Role of Social Media in Marketing

admin — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 22:44:03 +0000

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Robert Scoble, blogger and entrepreneur, discusses his thoughts on how ideas spread. The public session was part of the Stanford GSB marketing course, the Power of Social Technology (Dr. Jennifer Aaker). A panel of experts, including Robert Scoble, MC Hammer, and Loic LeMeur, discussed how social media can build successful brands.

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Setting Your Social Media Strategy

admin — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 01:48:08 +0000

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Many of the most forward looking companies are having phenomenal success marketing to customers through social media channels. By engaging in the conversation on Twitter, distributing video on YouTube, and forming groups on sites like Facebook, they are creating massive amounts of brand awareness and turning customers into evangelists. Come discover how you can use these new media to grow your business and what guidelines you need to put in place for your employees.

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