Facebook Insights 101: How to Use Facebook Analytics to Shape your Social Strategy

But if you’re not diligently studying this rich data, you are missing out on valuable information about your followers, as well as the effectiveness of your content. Follow along to learn about some of the most valuable insights measured in Facebook and how you can use these to build a healthy and strong social media presence for your firm.

Promotions

Because Facebook has changed its algorithm to prioritize updates from family and friends, the best way to get your content seen is by running a promotion, and this is where you measure its success.

What to do: Spending money promoting your firm on Facebook is a smart move when you want to reach a certain group of people. Maybe you’re hosting an event or have a great blog post you want more broadly shared. Use this page to figure out if you’re reaching the right people and what kinds of actions are taking place on the promotion. Then use these insights to make adjustments for more successful ads going forward.

Reach

This page shows how well your posts are performing on Facebook.

What it includes:

• The total number of people who had your posts on their screens, both paid and organic
• If people are recommending your page in posts or comments
• How many people hid, reported as spam or unliked a post
• The actions people took on your posts, like:
  • Comments
  • Shares
  • Reactions
  • Other

What to do: Reach metrics will help your firm uncover what content is most engaging among your audience. Look specifically at the kinds of actions taking place. Is there a spike in shared content this month? Did you receive an overwhelming amount of comments on a specific day? Or maybe a couple of people hid your posts after you shared a politically charged article. When you pay attention to how people are reacting to you, you learn to create a more impactful, tailored message over time.

Page Views

Here, you will see which sections of your Facebook page are getting viewed the most.

What it includes:

• How many total views your page received in a specific amount of time
• Information on the age and gender of the people looking at your page, what country and city they’re from and what device they’re using
• Top sources driving people to Facebook, like your website and Google
• Which section is being looked at most frequently
  • Home page
  • Events
  • Posts
  • About
  • Photos
  • Other

What to do: If the target audience for your law firm is male college students in Chapel Hill but your page is viewed most frequently by 45 to 55-year-old women, you may need to tweak the kind or tone of content you’re sharing on social to align with the right people.

Actions on Page

Your social media presence is meant to ultimately connect people to your firm. This page will show you how successful you are in that category.

What it includes:

• If someone has clicked to get directions to your firm, visited your website, clicked on your phone number or took an action of some other kind (email, book now, learn more, etc.)
• Age, gender, location and device used by the people who took these actions

What to do: Use these insights to begin experiments with different calls-to-action. If the goal of your Facebook page is to drive traffic to your website, focus on a strong website push. However, if you want to make it easy for a prospect to make an appointment with your firm, test out a “set up an appointment” button.

Posts

Get the low-down on how well your posts are doing on Facebook.

What it includes:

• The days and times your fans are online most often
• The different post types and their average reach and engagement
• Top posts from pages you watch
• Details of every post you’ve shared on Facebook, including the type of post, who it was targeting, reach and engagement, and if it was promoted

What to do: If you see that the most popular time prospects are on Facebook is Wednesday at 8 p.m., make sure you’re scheduling posts around this time. And pay attention to what types of posts are most popular. Are people significantly more engaged when you post a video? If so, think about ways to incorporate more in your social strategy.

Videos

You probably know how popular video is, but are you using it effectively on social media?

What it includes:

• Popularity of each video
• How long people watched
• The number of times a video was played for more than three seconds

What to do: Making videos for social media can be a time-consuming exercise, so use this page to learn what type of video your audience is most interested in. Maybe a 15-second animated video performed better than a three-minute office tour. This data can help you discover trends so you’re not spending time creating content that doesn’t properly engage prospects.

People

Your clients are your bread and butter, so keep this section bookmarked for information about who you’re reaching on social.

What it includes:

• Aggregated demographic information about the people who like and follow your page, as well as those who were reached and who engaged with your content
  • Gender
  • Age
  • Location
  • Language

What to do: This information can help create an informed picture of your target audience. When you know who’s engaging with your page most often, you can create more accurate buyer personas for your firm, helping you properly tailor your voice and tone to the right people.