Facebook Insights, For Your Website?
For most social media marketers the most frustrating thing about Facebook is their privacy options for users. Most Facebook users only share content (wall posts, photos, etc.) with their Facebook friends. This means we, as marketers, have no idea what the users are saying about the brands for which we market.
Facebook Insights for websites has changed this. We may not be able to see exactly what they’re saying about the brand, but we can at least see how frequently the website is being shown on the largest social network in the world. Below are the four main actions that users can make using Facebook to talk about your specific website domain and can now be tracked using Facebook Insights.
1. Facebook Organic Shares
Ever wonder how many times your website content is shared on Facebook? The Organic Shares tab is the place for you. This section of Facebook Insights tracks the total number of times a link to your domain was shared through a status message or a wall post on Facebook. It will also show how many impressions (or views) the post received and the number of times the link was actually clicked on.
Facebook Organic Link Share Post
The thing that we, as marketers, like about Facebook is that the users put a lot of demographic information on their profiles, which then carries over to Facebook Insights. Want to know if men or women share more of your content? What about clicks? It’s all there – including age, language, and country.
Facebook Insights Organic Share Overview
Are you wanting to know how many times your latest blog post was posted on Facebook? What about the webpage for your new product? Facebook Insights can even show you data on specific pages of your website. Simply click on the “Select Page” link right below your domain at the top of the page, put in the exact URL of the page for which you want to see stats, and the stats magically appear. There is also a sub tab for “popular pages” that will show you shares, clicks, and clickthrough rate (CTR) for your most popular web pages on Facebook.
2. Facebook Like Button
Most businesses, as well as individuals, have a Facebook Like Button on their website. It gives website visitors an easy way to say they like a webpage on their Facebook profile. The Like Button tab allows us to see stats on these like buttons – a lot more stats than the button itself tells us.
Facebook Like Button Post
This tab allows us to see how many times the Like button was shown on the website, how many people clicked that like button, and subsequently the number of impressions and clicks that “like” story had on Facebook. It will also show “Like Story Feedback” – how many people “liked” the like link story or posted a comment regarding the like link story. Again this information can be broken down by demographics, as well as a page by page basis.
3. Facebook Send Button
The Send Button allows website visitors to send the webpage link to specific Facebook friends or groups of Facebook friends, as well as specific email addresses. When the link is sent to Facebook friends or groups, a message is sent to that friend’s Facebook Message area. When the link is sent to an email address, Facebook identifies if that email address is associated with a Facebook account and if it is, a message is sent to the Facebook account. If it is not, an email is sent to the specified email address with the message and the link.
Facebook Send Button Form
As with the Like Button, Facebook Insights shows how many impressions the Send Button had on the website, how many times a message was sent from the button, how many times the message was viewed on Facebook, and how many people clicked on that message to get to the webpage. Demographic information, as well as “Like Story Feedback” is also available.
4. Facebook Comments Box
The Facebook Comments Box is very similar to most comment boxes you have seen on blogs. The bonus with this comment box is that it puts the webpage link and comment on the commenters Facebook profile (if they keep the “Post to Profile” box checked).
Facebook Comment Box Post
Again, Facebook Insights will show you the number of times the comment box was shown on your website, the number of comments posted to Facebook, how many times that post was seen, and the number of clicks the website link received. Demographic information, as well as “Like Story Feedback” is also available for this tab.
5 Steps to Setting Up Facebook Insights for Your Website
Now that you’ve seen all the great data you can get with Facebook Insights for Domains, I’m sure you want to know how to set it up for your website…
Well, here’s the deal, I’ll tell you in my next blog post, 5 Steps to Setting Up Facebook Insights for Your Website, but first you need to do something for me. Help me “Beat the Boss.” I need this post to get over 600 pageviews and you can help me reach this goal. Simply do the following:
- Like Amplify Interactive’s Facebook Post for this blog article – while you’re there, like Amplify Interactive if you haven’t already done so.
- Share this article on your Facebook Wall.
- Re-tweet the tweet for this blog post from Amplify Interactive’s Twitter Profile
- Thumbs Up the link to this post on StumbleUpon.
- Share the link on Google+ – feel free to follow me too!.
- Put it in your LinkedIn status update.
- Digg the article
- Submit the article to Sphinn
- If you’re really old school, share it on MySpace.
- Share the article anywhere else you think it could be helpful to others.
Once the article reaches its pageview goal, I’ll post 5 Steps to Setting Up Facebook Insights for Your Website. So stay tuned!
Amplify Interactive offers Social Media Marketing services for small to medium sized businesses. Contact us today to chat about your Social Media Marketing strategy.
Great post. Looking forward to part 2 (get sharing, people! Like she said, we need 600 visits in order to see it!).
Good post. Thanks for explaining everything you can find out about your website via facebook insights.
On a different but somewhat related topic, I’m sure you also saw today’s news about Facebook updating their privacy settings. I don’t think most of them are new – they’re just making them more accessible/understandable. I mean – I’ve always used lists to control who sees what, but my friends are all surprised to hear that you can do that. I think this is probably a reaction to Google+ and how they make it easier to create and use circles (lists)
Here’s a story about it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/facebook-makes-sweeping-changes-in-privacy-sharing-controls/2011/08/24/gIQAbDC8aJ_story.html
And here’s Facebook’s page about what to expect: http://www.facebook.com/about/sharing
and a blog post from Facebook about it: http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150251867797131
Wonderful information!
Wow! Now I Know I should have had more college. This is great. I will be implementing as much of this as I can. Very cool stuff. Want to hear part 2. Could you email me when it’s published?
Thanks so much for your comment, Rick. The follow up to this post will be out next week. Please consider subscribing to our blog by clicking on one of the subscription options in the right side navigation under “subscribe” or sign up for email notifications with Feedburner. Good luck with your social marketing endeavors.