So I’m struggling with these numbers a bit and what they really mean.

Right now 77 are “Talking About This” on our page, and 1,818 “Total Weekly Reach”.

My suspicion is that the Total Weekly Reach is what I should be considering, but I’m not sure.

What opinions do you have?

@donpurdum Hi Don

“Talking About This” is basically a measure of engagement. It is measured over 1 week and updated daily. Basically, if anyone interacts (likes, shares, comments, etc) with your page in some way they will be counted in this.

“Total Weekly Reach” is a measure of how many individuals are you reaching via your posts.

Hope that helps you a little, Don.

Russell Allert

@russellallert @floridallergy – Thanks guys! Which one do you feel we should focus on more?

@donpurdum The simple answer is to focus on “talking about this” as it does measure engagement. Reach will come once you start engaging with more and more people.

You will never reach 100% engagement (that is your “talking about this” number the same as your page Likes) so be realistic. This number will move up and down a lot so take note of it over time, but as it updates daily you should be able to see if what you are writing about is getting good engagement or not.

An average number I have seen for a decent level of engagement is roughly 10% of your Likes. If you can do better than this constantly then you are doing well.

Hope that helps!

Russell

It also depends on your goals and objectives of the page and your social media strategy. Both are important (who you’re reaching and how many interact with your page) and should be looked at and documented.

In order of importance though, remember to ask yourself “what are your goals?” “What do you wish to achieve through your social media strategy” and so on. Are you trying to build awareness or create an interactive community, for example.

Good luck!

@chatmarketing Hi Alan

You are correct. The more fans a page has the lower their engagement level (generally) but my work is with mostly small businesses and so that 10% level works most of the time. Although, remember to take the number over a long period of time as I find it fluctuates wildly. 

I think the reason why those percentage are so low for larger pages is that they were so obsessed with gaining Likes in a short space of time that they loss the ability to connect or engage with those people who liked them (over the long term)

Cheers!Russell

@chatmarketing I keep a spreadsheet and use that to monitor the numbers over time. It just helps me get a “big picture” perspective. 

You could do this daily or weekly – depends on how much time you have. I do this daily but I’m a social media nerd.  

I like to see at least 3-months worth of data before I’m happy. Mainly because the longer your data set the more of an idea you will have if you are being consistent enough with your engagement. 

Once you have that data, average it to get your number. Or even better, use Excel to graph it and find your trend line – if it is moving up then you are doing the right things. Depending on your skill level you can also use a “weighted average” which is a little more accurate. 

One thing to consider though if you are measuring consistency, is to take out any unusual activity. If you run a contest for a week during the time period your “Talking About” will likely spike, which will lift the average. Which is fine over 12 months but it will over-inflate your average over a shorter time when you want to measure consistency. 

I hope all that made sense. 

Russell Allert

Hey everyone, 

 I have seen some pages with over 10,000 fans, but have under 200 “talking about this”, and others that have only 2,500 fans but have 1,200 “talking about this”.  The one with 2,500 fans obviously has so much interaction.  Every time they post something, whether it is really that interesting or not, there seems to be such a loyal following that you will always see at least 10 – 25 comments.  Their edge rank must be through the roof.  I wish I could get even a small piece of that success .

Hey @Alan Martin, here is one that I follow quite a bit, https://www.facebook.com/goworkoutgirl?ref=pb, and here is one that has almost 100%, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Most-Exciting-Photos/338280396187432?ref=pb.

@corysandyke Thanks very much for that. I’ll check these out!

Good point Russell.  The example page “most-exciting-photos” makes it a lot easier for their fans to post.  I think generally people would find it easier share an image/photo than actually saying something on a page.

Cory

If you’re talking about it goes up , you’re going to reach more people as their actions show to their friends.

I agree with @leopoldpanovi
Focus more on ‘Talking about this’ than reach. As the more engagement and interaction you have, the more reach you will see.
So ‘Talking about this’ first, then will follow ‘Reach’.

I think “reach” is measured over four weeks — longevity of post. So both the immediate response and its life tell you important information. You are likely to get comments early on, but if people are still reading your post after the chatter has died down, that’s nice to know as well.

@annfurnivall I think it has to do with how Facebook calculates it. Sometimes I see a certain number of people talking about my page, then later on in the day, it drops. It fluctuates; so if you have 200 talking about your page at a particular time, there’s a possibility of a drop or an increase, depending on the activity on your page.

If someone who’s not a fan takes part in the activities on your page, it will reflect, but won’t be sustainable as someone who’s a fan.