Insights helps you understand how your Facebook page is performing and shows you which types of posts works for your audience. Insights is also the best interface for understand the demographic that has gathered around your page. All of these things are important if you are seriously using Facebook for your business.
There have been a couple of re-designs to this interface in the last year. The latest version ties into the new business page Timeline design.
Public viewing of your Insights
What used to be hidden, is now in plain view. On all Facebook business Pages, one of the app boxes is called Likes. Anyone visiting your Page can click that box and see a snapshot of your Page’s analytics.
And also under the name of your Page is a small line of numbers in a medium grey font color with two or three numbers; the total number of people who have Liked the page, the number of people talking about this page, and if your business is a Places page (has a local address) the total number of times people have checked-in.
Viewing your Page’s Insights
How do you get to your Insights? Facebook has created this Admin panel for all Pages, and that is the easiest place to get to your Insights. When you are on your Page, your Admin panel might be opened automatically. If not, click the button in the top right corner that says, Admin Panel. Once opened, look for the See All link above the Insights box.
Once you click the See All link, the interface will start to look familiar, if you used it before the Timeline re-design went into effect. You have several tabs at the top; Overview, Likes, Reach, and Talking About This.
Overview tab
The Overview gives you a snapshot of the data for the last month. The line of numbers at the top are; Total Likes, Friends of Fans, People Talking About This, and Weekly total Reach. The handy arrows tell you if you are continuing to engage your audience or if the attention is waning.
The next section down on the Overview tab is called Page Posts and contains a dynamic table where you can sort the information by column. So, for example, you can sort the table by number of Engaged Users to see the posts that had the most.
Likes tab
Clicking the Likes tab opens another page with information about your Page’s demographics and where your Likes came from. This tab also shows you how many have Unliked your Page — a valuable number to analyze. You can view the data with a custom date range, but the range can be no longer than 89 days. It defaults to a range of the past 30 days.
Reach tab
Clicking the Reach tab will show you the actual reach of your page. This particular tab has some very important information on it:
Gender and Age: Check out the percentage of people who saw your content in each age bracket.
Countries, Cities, Languages: The reach number is going to be much higher than the number of Page Likes, because of the ability of Friends of your fans seeing the content. For example, your page might have 10,000 page Likes, but a reach of 505,000 people in the United States.
How You Reached People: There are two charts in this section: one for all the different types of Reach — organic, paid, viral, and total — and another graph for how many times people saw your content.
Visits to your Page: You’ll find page views total and by unique visitors.
Total Tab Views: This list of numbers shows you what people thought were worth clicking on — so your Timeline number will probably be the highest number and after that you can see which apps are the most interesting to people. You might find your Contact tab getting the second highest number! That a great sign!
External Referrers: You can see from this list if your new visitors are coming from a Google search or from a blogpost where you were mentioned, or from any number of places online.
Talking About This tab
Clicking the Talking About This tab opens another rich interface with information about the most engaged people connected to your page. Remember, Facebook calls all the different kinds of posts — Stories. The bottom graph on this tab lets you see the different kinds of Stories that have produced engagement by clicking the dropdown button called All Stories. You can click through the five different types (Page Likes, Stories from Your Posts, Mentions and Photos Tags, Posts by Others and Questions) and see the corresponding numbers on the graph change.
Helpful links and resources with Insight
When on the Insights interface, look for the gear icon in the top right corner of the page. When you click it, you can find quick links to Facebook’s own Insights Guide and a link to Take the Tour. Both are very helpful in teaching you the particular vocabulary Facebook uses and what all the numbers mean. Some of the screenshots in their own guide are of the old design (even Facebook has to update its documents), but the descriptions and marketing advice are still valid.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
archive
1. (noun) A list of previous blog posts, in chronological order. 2. (verb) To place files or blog posts in a safer place (on DVD or another server) for longer-term or backup storage.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
attribute
Used in an HTML tag to give an instruction to a Web browser. For example, in This link goes to <a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>, the <a> taggets an attribute (href) and a value ("http://www.google.com") to go along with the basic tag. In this case, the attribute indicates to the browser that what comes next is a hypertext reference — in this case, a Web page.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blacklist
An often-centralized list of e-mail addresses, URLs, and IP addresses used by spammers that are then forbidden in any blog post on your blog. With an up-to-date blacklist, a lot of spam is stopped before it becomes a comment.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
block
To stop all contact with a MySpace user. He can’t comment on your blog page or send you any message that you actually receive.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blog
A combination of the words Web and log. Bloggers (individuals, groups, or businesses) post a chronological log of information. Content is determined entirely by the author(s) of the blog; many are personal journals.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blog post
An entry in a blog, possibly containing text, images, and other media.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogger
The author of a blog.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogging policy
Outlines what you’re allowed to post in your blog.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogging software
Technology that enables you to blog. Can be either hosted or nonhosted.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
blogroll
A collection of links used or recommended by a blogger.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
comment
A piece of feedback left by a reader on a blog post, or to leave such a comment.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
comment spam
Typically, an automated process that posts useless information with links to all kinds of other sites on your blog posts.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
cookie
A short piece of computer code, stored on your computer, that enables Web sites to remember certain settings and information the next time you visit that site.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Dashboard
A kind of control panel in Blogger that shows you the blogs you’ve set up, giving you access posting, using help resources, or even creating another blog.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
definition list
A type of HTML list that gives a term and then its definition and has built-in spacing to lay out those elements properly.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
disk space
Amount of room available on your hard drive.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
domain
A domain is the address, or main URL, that people type in the browser to get to your Web site. The domain name you choose can’t be used by anyone else.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
domain registrar
A service that enables you to register a domain name.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
entry
An single posting in a blog containing text, images, or other media, or any combination of those things.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Facebook
A social-networking service that enables you to keep in contact with families and friends via the Web.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Flickr
A Web site that allows you to share, organize, edit, and otherwise manage your photos.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Friend List
Your virtual online address book in MySpace. You can become someone’s friend by either sending a fellow MySpacer a Friend Request or by being on the receiving end of a Friend Request from another MySpace user.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
hosted services
Manages the data, software, and Web hosting of a blog; the blogger just manages the content.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
HTML
The computer coding used by Web designers to create Web pages.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
hyperlink
A navigation tool that allows a user to go from one Web location to another by clicking. Hyperinks (or just links) are typically underlined.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
hypertext reference
In HTML, the address that a hyperlink connects to when clicked. For example, in This link goes to <a href="http://www.google.com">Google</a>, the hypertext reference (href) is http://www.google.com. Hyperlink references can also jump to new positions on the same page, open a new e-mail message, or begin a file download.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
link
Short for hyperlink, a navigation tool that allows a user to go from one Web location to another by clicking. Links are typically underlined.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Mom test
A self-test that flags inappropriate blog posts. If you’d let your mom read the post, then it’s probably passed the Mom test. Specifically, don’t blog about topics you think will hurt others; don’t blog about others without their permission, even about topics you consider inconsequential; and don’t identify friends and lovers by name without their permission.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
MySpace
A social-networking service that enables you to keep in contact with families and friends via the Web.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
MySpace profile
Your MySpace identity. It can contain as much or as little information about you as you’d like.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
news aggregation
The ability to aggregate news by using RSS feeds. Having a news aggregator included with your blog package allows your site to pull in information from another blog.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
nonhosted service
Blog software that you set up on your own Web server. It allows you to take on all responsibilities related to maintaining your blog.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
ordered list
Contains items that must be listed in a particular order, such as a list of ranks or preferences. It may also indicate a list of steps for the reader to follow.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
pinging
An automated notification system for search engines and newsreaders, letting those services know that your blog has been updated. A ping occurs when one computer asks another whether it’s there; the second computer confirms its presence.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
post
1. (noun) An entry in a blog containing text, images, other media, or any combination of these. 2. (verb) The act of creating and/or uploading a blog entry.
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private profile
A MySpace profile that’s limited on who can view it, such as only people on your Friend List.
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public domain
The status of publications, processes, and product designs that are free from copyrights and/or patents and are available for anyone's use.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
RSS feed
Really Simple Syndication. An RSS feed is a computer-readable version of your blog, standardized so that it can be displayed in newsreaders and on Web sites and blogs.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
sidebar
A column to the right or left of the main content of a blog that contains things like navigational links, special highlighting graphics that point to social networking sites, blogrolls, archive links, or anything that you want to share with your visitors outside the context of a blog post. Sidebars are usually included on every page of your blog and are consistent from page to page.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
social network
A service, such as Facebook or MySpace, that enables to keep in touch with people you know — and meet people you don’t know.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
spam
Unsolicited electronic messages sent in bulk that may be commercial, nonsensical, or malicious. In addition to e-mail spam, blog comments and blog forums can be targeted by spammers.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
tag
A relevant keyword associated or assigned to a piece of information, such as an image, a blog entry, or a video clip. Tags are usually chosen informally by the content creator or by the online community; they help give content to nontext media and organize information for ease of searching.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Trackback
A technology that tracks references to a blog posting that occurs on other blogs. They allow bloggers to link to blog posts on related topics.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
transparent
1. Being honest and truthful on your blog. Also means that you admit mistakes and engage in dialogue with readers who leave comments. Considered proper blogging etiquette. 2. Integration of applications, programs, and media from different sources in such a way that the end user is unaware that the content is not self-contained.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
unordered list
unordered list is a series of bulleted items and is used for lists that don’t require numbering.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
video blog
A blog consisting of video files, or the practice of placing a video file in a blog post.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
video-sharing service
A service, such as YouTube, that enables you to share video with others.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Web host
The Web server where you software, graphics, and other files live online.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
Web server
Technology that looks at what Web page is requested and then feeds the browser the appropriate file. It does most of the hard work of serving Web pages to visitors coming to your Web site.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
whitelist
A list of preselected users who are allowed to comment on your blog.
Blogging & Social Networking Glossary
YouTube
A video-sharing service.
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