Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators, Facebook administrators.

Afew days ago Facebook rolled out a new look to Facebook Insights, including some important changes to its metrics reports. Note that it sometimes takes days, even weeks, for such updates to take effect on all 1 billion Facebook accounts.

In the 10-minute video above, I’ll step you through the changes and what they mean for your organization or nonprofit. Specifically, you’ll learn about all the changes to five main reports:

1. Overview: Get a 7-day snapshot of the most important activity on your page.
2. Page Likes: See net likes over time and where your likes come from.
3. Page Reach: See how many people are seeing your posts over time.
4. Page Posts: See how people are engaging with your posts.
5. People: See how your fans are similar and different from people who see and/or engage with your posts.

What do you think of the changes to Insights?

The post Understanding the big changes to Facebook Insights appeared first on Socialbrite.

Now that Facebook has rolled out the new Insights to all Pages, you’re probably wondering what some of these new metrics mean.

But you’re also wondering which ones really matter.

Yes, you can still view how many fans you have, and you can even see how many collective friends your fans have! But these numbers really don’t matter if no one cares about your organization.

The Insights metrics that matter

Some of you might be saying: “Yeah, but this Page has over 3,000 fans!” Still others might be saying “3,000 is nothing…We have over 50,000 fans.” Whether you have 3,000 fans or 50,000 means nothing if:

1. No one’s seeing any of your Page stories.
2. No one’s talking about your organization.
3. No one’s telling their friends.

How many people are seeing your Page stories?

One thing that really matters is if people actually see your Page stories – right? Insights shows you how many Facebook users are seeing your Page stories in their news feed or on your Page. In the graph below, almost half of the Page’s fans are not getting this Page’s updates in their news feed.

Fortunately, many Facebook users are taking action on what they see (commenting, liking, sharing, etc.), and those actions are seen by their friends:

Viral reach (the number of people who see stories about your Page from their friends) is what Facebook is all about!

Metric: People are talking about your Page

So how many people are talking about your nonprofit? And what are they saying?

You can see a rollup of all these actions on the Insights Dashboard, right above data about the posts you’re publishing.

Knowing how much they’re talking is one thing, but knowing what they’re saying is what’s meaningful. Are they liking your post? Liking your Page? Commenting and sharing?

“Talking About This” includes the following actions:

• Liking your Page
• Liking, commenting on or sharing your Page update
• Commenting on or liking a Sponsored Story
• Answering a Question posted by a Page
• Posting to a Page’s Wall
• RSVPing to an Event hosted by the Page
• Mentioning (or tagging) your Page
• Tagging a person or Page in one of your photos
• Checking in (if you have Facebook Place)

So what metrics should you pay attention to?

In one sense, social media measurement is like using a compass. Both answer three essential questions:

1. How far you are from your destination (our compass includes GPS).
2. When and how you need to change course.
3. When you’ve arrived at your destination.

And now the really important question:

What’s your destination?

The post Which Facebook Insights metrics matter to your nonprofit? appeared first on Socialbrite.

5 tips to help you take advantage of Facebook’s twin feeds

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations, social enterprises, brands, social media managers, Web publishers, individuals.

Facebook’s enhanced News Feed and Ticker has changed the engagement game for Facebook Page admins. And those who know the rules of the game will be able to get more results simply by shifting strategy.

Facebook now has two News Feeds

Facebook users now have two News Feeds in one — the Ticker and the main News Feed (see image above).

The main News Feed is similar to what we’ve been used to, but “Top Stories” and “Recent” stories are more prevalent. The “Ticker” on the right is a Twitter-like feed of stories published by a user’s Facebook friends. These News Feeds present content in very different ways:

• The Main News Feed – This includes stories by friends and Pages you’ve liked. “Recent” is simply posts in reverse chronological order. What appears in “Top Stories” is entirely determined by Edgerank.

• The Ticker – This includes only stories by friends. Your Page only gets exposure if a user is “Talking About” your Page.

How the two News Feeds impact Facebook Pages

According to EdgeRank Checker, soon after Facebook tweaked the News Feed, impressions (the number of times a story is displayed throughout Facebook) were down 25%, but likes and comments were up by 9% and 21% respectively.

This makes sense because when a user engages with your Facebook Page, the Ticker pushes it to all of their friends. Likes and comments can also increase if users see your Page story in their main News Feed.

How to shift your strategy

There are at least five ways you can tweak your current Facebook Page strategy to take advantage of the new News Feed:

1. Increase your post frequency. To make up for the overall decrease in impressions, post more frequently. Make sure you use Insights to determine how many posts per day work best for your Page.
2. Create even more engaging content. Posts that have a high EdgeRank will now remain in the News Feed longer.

1. Get fans to stay connected. Deepen and broaden your relationships with fans so that they share your Page content consistently. You can do this by rewarding fans or using a content calendar.
2. Push engagement with other channels. Use your email list or Twitter to drive engagement on specific posts.
3. Get more airtime with Facebook Sponsored Story ads. You can create an ad featuring one of your Page stories to get you even more attention near the News Feed (ads are displayed right below the ticker).

How have you changed your Facebook Page strategy?

The post What Facebook’s hybrid News Feed means for engagement appeared first on Socialbrite.

Find out how Facebook can help your nonprofit increase engagement

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations, social enterprises, brands, social media managers, marketing professionals, bloggers, individuals.

Ilove the new Facebook Insights. Unlike so many other changes that Facebook has sprung unexpectedly on us, the new Insights is a welcome change. I think it is such a significant change that it is a game-changer in the social media space. If I sound gushy, well, I am. With the new Insights metrics, Facebook is boldly telling the Facebook community and its competitors that the most important social network metric is real online engagement. As I’ve written before, if your page cannot ultimately move people to take action, then your organization is wasting its time with Facebook. Online engagement is how it begins.

Know how engaging your content really is

Everything about the new Facebook Insights is focused on helping page administrators understand how well their page’s content is being received, shared, and talked about within Facebook. No longer do we have to count up Likes, fan posts to walls, and comments on posts, and pull together the online engagement percentage. And what’s more, we can dive deep, very deep, by post. By who is seeing the posts, and where. By how the content is being shared, and what type of content is being shared. That’s just the beginning. The Facebook metric that matters now is engagement. Here are but three examples of how Facebook is highlighting engagement.

Likes vs. PTAT (People Talking About This)

Think about the bold statement Facebook is making when it shows this publicly on every Facebook page, for all to note:

In one glance, which number is more important? With simplicity and sharpness, Facebook turned the Like numbers game into a “how many really care” numbers game. Brilliant.

Engagement by post

You can also drill down by post. New Insights is designed to help you understand which posts created the most Reach (impressions, who saw it), or highest number of Engaged Users (who clicked on it), or highest number of those who Talked About This (Liked, shared it, commented on a post). The old Insights offered a blanket number of impressions and feedback percentage by wall post, which merely offered a sense of reach and interest. A post like this one (below), which 2,200+ Facebook users could have seen, only had 56 clicks on it and 9 users who commented or Liked the post. The real engagement metric on this post is 56. And nine people who were really engaged.

What types of posts are the most engaging? Figure that out and improve your PTAT score (People Talking About This). Go get ’em!

Understanding how your content engages people

I also love that you can tell which of the wall posts took off due to either organic, paid or viral traffic. Look at those posts, figure out what happened there, and create more content like that. Understand the difference between the posts that “go viral” and those that are seen because of organic traffic. Greater reach ultimately will attract new fans and people Talking About your page and posts.

So this is the future of measurement. Thank goodness. Facebook has made the first move in this direction. It’s is a great start.

Twitter, YouTube, Google+, you’re next.

Related

• How to use the new Facebook Insights (John Haydon in Socialbrite)

• Guide to social media metrics — social influence measurements, social media ROI, stats to measure on Facebook and Twitter, metrics and analytics tools & more

• How to understand Daily Active Users in Facebook Insights

The post Get deep into engagement with the new Facebook Insights appeared first on Socialbrite.

The upgraded Facebook metric tool explained in plain English

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations, social enterprises, brands, social media managers, individuals.

Two weeks ago, Facebook launched a completely new version of Facebook Page Insights along with several new metrics.

Some of the new metrics include:

• People Talking About This – This is the number of people who engage with your Page and includes users who have liked your Page, commented on or shared a post from your Page, answered a Question you’ve asked on your Page, or tagged your Page in an update or in a photo. This also includes Facebook users who’ve responded to an event on your Page.
• Friends of Fans – This is the total number of friends all your fans have.
• Reach – The number of people who have seen content associated with your Page.
• Virality – The percent of people who saw a story from your Page and “talked about it.”

How to access Insights on your Facebook Page

You can access your Facebook Page Insights directly under your Facebook Page’s main image in the sidebar (FYI – this tab can only be viewed by Page admins).

When you click on the Insights icon (see image above), you’ll go directly to an overview of analytics for your Facebook page. You’ll also notice that three sub-tabs have appeared in the sidebar: “Fans,” “Reach” and “Talking About This.”

Making sense of your Page overview

The first tab you’ll see when you click on Insights is an overview of your Page. This tab shows you the day-to-day information you need to know as a page administrator.

What do those four numbers at the top mean?

Those four numbers at the very top of this page are the most current snapshot of your page. Following is the definition for each number:

• Total Likes – Total likes is simply the number of people who have liked your Facebook Page up until yesterday.
• Friends of Fans – Friends of fans is the total number of friends that all of your Facebook fans have, taking mutual friends into account. This number is more useful if you are running a Facebook Sponsored Like Story because it would be the total number of people who could see that ad. The percent increase or decrease next to this number is a comparison with the previous seven-day period.
• People Talking About This – This is the number of people who engaged with your Page over the past seven days and includes users who liked your Page, commented on or shared a post from your Page, answered a Question you’ve asked on your Page, or tagged your Page in an update or in a photo. This also includes Facebook users who’ve responded to an event on your Page. The percent increase or decrease next to this number is a comparison with the previous seven-day period.
• Weekly Total Reach – This is the number of people who have seen any content associated with your Page (including any Ads or Sponsored Stories pointing to your Page) over the past seven days. The percent increase or decrease next to this number is a comparison with the previous seven-day period.

Underneath these four numbers you’ll see a graph with rolling weekly numbers for “Talking About This” and “Weekly Total Reach” for the past month. You’ll also see dots for each day that you’ve posted to your page (dot size indicates the number of posts for that day).

What does the Page Posts information mean?

Under the graph you’ll see a spreadsheet of your most recent page updates, with information about how Facebook users engaged with that content. Each column can be sorted, and you can even filter by post type at the top left of this spreadsheet (click on “All Post Types” at the top right of the spreadsheet to filter).

Following is the definition for each column:

• Date – The date that your post was published.
• Post – The type of post (post, photo, video, link, platform post) and excerpt.
• Reach – The number of people who saw that update, or the number of times that update was displayed.
• Engaged Users – The number of people who have clicked anywhere on your Post.
• Talking About This – The number of people who have created a story from your Post (see what this includes at the beginning of this article).
• Virality – The number of people your post reached who “talked about it” (Talking about this divided by Reach).

When you click on each number in this report, a small chart will pop up with more detail. These will be covered later this week (subscribe so you don’t miss out!)

What do the Fans, Reach & Talking About This tabs tell me?

• The “Fans” tab displays the same type of information that was displayed in the old Facebook Insights reports. You’ll see demographic info about your fans, how many people have liked your page, how many people have unliked your page, as well as a list of your top sources for fans.
• The “Reach” tab shows you information about who saw any content about your Page. This will include both fans and non-fans.
• The “Talking About This” tab shows you who created a story about your Page.

Do you like the new Insights?

The post How to use the new Facebook Insights appeared first on Socialbrite.