Hi everyone!  We have another fantastic guest expert this week for you!  I’m happy to have Emeric Ernoult, Facebook insights and metrics expert and founder of AgoraPulse – a Facebook CRM platform.  

This week we’ll be talking about Facebook metrics and insights.  How can we measure return and what stats should we watch?  Welcome @EmericErnoult

@EmericErnoult I also had a question about the differences between some of the numbers you see.  On the front page of your Timeline you see a Talking about This number but when you click into the Insights there is a different number.  Any idea which one is more current?

Hi @andrea-vahl, the most current one is the one you see in your insights (on the top of the screen).The one on your (public) home page is roughly the same as the one you had two days ago, so it is less current.If you pull your page insights data in Excel, you will probably find the two numbers two days apart.

@russellallert For me, the best metrics are the post level metrics. They are behind everything else (especially reach). Beyond the likes, comments and shares, I like to look at the clicks through rate for links, photos et videos. I also like to look closely at negative feedback for post to see what’s not working (at all!). 

When I look at those engagement metrics, I put them in perspective (i.e. %) with the number of people reached for the concerned post. That is the only way to compare one post performance to another.

Those metrics are not display prominently in the insights. The best way to view them is to download them in Excel or use a third party software.

@russellallert, you’re welcome!

If you want to know if your Talking About / Total likes ratio is “good”, you can’t really compare it to a unique benchmark. You need to compare it with equivalent pages (such as one of a competitor, for example). This ratio can vary greatly from one industry to another so you want to make sure you are benchmarking your KPI with others pages that are comparables.

Hi @emericernoult, One of my pages has 419 fans. “Talking About This” is 60 (14%). Probably 80% of the fan base if employees. Our goal is to reach beyond our fans and gain new Likes. So I have a question-

Is there a metric that tells me what % (or #) of the people that engaged w/ the page/content were NOT fans.

Thanks for your help!

“Concerning the “people who saw this post” metric, Facebook has changed the way it’s accounted for. Before, everytime a post was loaded on the user’s news feed, it was counted as “seen”, even if the post was loaded at the bottom of the feed (i.e. not visible to the user unless she scrolls down). “____________Thank you so much for sharing that…I’ve been really concerned about why my posts have only been getting half the views for the past few weeks and was wondering what I was doing wrong and was freaking out about it.  Now I am calm again : )

Thanks for your reply @Emericernoult. That’s pretty much what I was doing…looking at Viral Reach to get a general idea how many non-fans we are reaching. 
But the description in the popup that comes up when you hover over “Viral” does not say that non-fans specifically are being counted. It say “the number of unique users who have seen the post because one of their friends interacted w/ it by liking, commenting, sharing, etc. 

So, (watch out this is going to get confusing) if - I am a fan of a page (Fan A)- their content does not appear in my news feed because I haven’t engage with their content in months- I see their post because my friend (who’s a fan also- Fan B) commented on their post- so then I (Fan A) comment on the post (only because I saw my friend [Fan B] comment on it)

Here is the question: Does “Viral Reach” count Fan A because one of their friends interacted with the post even if Fan A IS a fan?

Sorry for the confusing scenario.

@emericernoult
My reach is finally going up again (for the past two days).  I use to try to LIKE all of the posts & comments (thinking this was helping to increase my reach), does it help?
I have noticed NOW when you LIKE your post, it does change from LIKE to UNLIKE.

@kim-olive, liking all your posts and comments may help if you have very limited audience and engagement. It won’t make a difference if you have a significant and “normally” engaged audience.If you do that, it’s better to do it while “using Facebook as” you (your personnal account) not the page. It’s kind of awkward to look at a timeline where the page itself likes everything it posts, especially when there is only a couple of likes

It is normal that when you like your post, the displays changes from like to unlike. If you have liked a post, the only think you can then do is to unlike it (if you choose so!).

@emericernoult Hi Emeric! I manage the Omni Hotels & Resorts corporate page, and have been noticing a marked decrease in our reach over the past few weeks…I wrote a post about it here:http://halftimelessons.com/is-facebook-decreasing-your-post-reach-to-get-you-to-buy-promoted-posts/ I generally try not to get too “conspiracy theoretical” about these things, but I haven’t been able to come up with a good explanation, and people seem to be experiencing the same thing. Any chance you might take a look and give some insight? Thanks so much for making yourself accessible to this forum! Jay 

Hi @omni-concierge, you raise an interesting issue. As I don’t want to do any guesswork here, I propose to review the data we have on the thousands of pages that our platform manages and record a screencast to show you my findings. I’ll do that tomorrow and will post the URL of my screencast here. Stay tuned

Hey @omni-concierge, I have just spent some time reviewing our own data and I cannot see any pattern similar to the one you describe in your article for the month of August. I have recorded a screencast for you, so you’ll see the hard data

It is accessible here: http://bit.ly/O3hj0q

Hope this helps!

You can also install our free 30 day trial (http://agorapulse.com), we will load your last 50 posts and will give you a detailed analysis of your post performance. As it is free, it won’t cost you much

@omni-concierge, you’re very welcome! It is what conversations and social media are all about, aren’t they? Have a great week-end.

@emericernoult Hi Emeric- Thanks again! I saw that article yesterday… Lots more detail, but I’m guessing all part of the same issue.Jay

You’re welcome @andrea-vahl! Thank you all for your great questions!

@andrea-vahl, that’s a good question. I’ve never shared a fan content on any of our pages so I have no experience to that matter I would suspect that edgerank prefers posts that you’ve crafted yourself (with your little hands than something that you’ve just “republished” through a simple share? Maybe…That will remain another edgerank mystery!

As for the fact that post with lots of shares get less viral reach than posts with lots of comments, we have noticed a problem with the viral reach data lately. So if your findings are related to recent posts, it may be the reason. My friend Jon Loomer has written an article on the subject and I’ve noticed the same on our end: http://www.jonloomer.com/2012/09/17/is-facebook-viral-reach-down/