The company that runs Facebook may now be known as Meta (as of 2021), but Facebook remains a powerful social platform and brand. Its worldwide monthly active user count is holding steady at over 3 billion.blogsbusiness
That’s a staggering number.seosites
Thankfully, Facebook Insights is an amazing tool for tracking user interaction on your Facebook business page. All admins of your page can access Facebook Insights, which provides a wealth of information about your content and audience.
By using Facebook Insights, you’ll know the best time of day to post, the best day of the week to post, and what type of content is most popular.
In this Facebook insights guide, I’ll go over specific, actionable ways to find valuable data about your Facebook page, including post performance and audience information.seosites
It is important to note that the Facebook Insights tool is constantly updated to reflect your page’s developments and any emerging patterns. So, you’ll need to keep checking back to stay in the loop.blogsbusiness
What Is Facebook Insights?
Facebook Insights is a powerful analytics tool that helps you see how your Facebook Business page is performing through a ton of data and metrics.
From demographic details about your audience to which types of content perform best, it offers valuable, data-driven insights you can use to tweak your Facebook strategy.
Knowing your way around the Facebook insights tool and how to use it to optimize your engagement and reach can help you take your business to the next level.
Facebook Insights vs. Audience Insights
Facebook Insights and Audience Insights are not one and the same.
Facebook Insights analyzes data to show you how your Facebook page is performing. It tracks things like likes, page views, and engagement on your posts to help you understand what content is attracting an audience.
Audience Insights on FB refers to data about who’s liking your page and commenting on your posts. You can get insights into where they live, how old they are, their interests, and more. Audience Insights paints a picture of who your content is reaching—and who it’s not.
Combining both Facebook and Audience Insights can help you build a strong Facebook marketing strategy that attracts more members of your target audience and engages your existing audience.
How to Access Facebook Insights
1. Go to your Facebook Business page, then click “Professional Dashboard” on the left menu.
2. On the left menu, expand the “Insights” drop-down menu.
This is the main Insights dashboard, and here you’ll see information about trends, posts, and your audience.
You’ll see your most recent posts, Facebook likes, reach, actions on the page, the gender and age of your audience, and much, much more. Don’t be afraid to dive in here. It might look a bit overwhelming, but it’s pretty easy to navigate.
How to Use the Facebook Page Insights API
The Facebook Page Insights API allows you to retrieve data related to metrics and statistics about a Facebook page’s performance, audience demographics, engagement, and more.seosites
You can use metrics from this Facebook insights tool to monitor the effectiveness of your social media campaigns and content strategies, as well as to track and understand audience behavior on your Facebook pages.
Using the API is fairly technical, so an understanding of HTTP, APIs, and JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) is a must. Here’s how to do it:
1. Register as a Meta Developer.seosites
2. Generate a page token with the required permissions with the Graph API Explorer.
3. Choose the metrics you want to query, the interval you want to get data for, and the aggregation period.
4. Call the API. There are several tools for this, including Graph API Explorer, Postman, or CURL.
How to Export Facebook Insights Dataseosites
If you don’t have developer expertise, don’t worry: There’s another Facebook Insights tool for you. It’s easy to export your Facebook Insights data into Excel. However, the only parameter you can specify is a date range.
1. Export your data using the top right button on the Insights page. This little block will pop up:
2. Select Page Level Data and the Excel format option. Then, choose the date range for the data.
3. Click to download.
Once you’ve downloaded the .xls file, you’ll see never-ending columns of data that may at first seem overwhelming. At the bottom, you’ll also see various data sheets containing information such as key metrics, daily like sources, and daily viral reach.
Each column in the key metrics sheet provides you with different information. For example, if you scroll to the Lifetime Total Likes column, you’ll be able to see how many likes your page received over the dates you specified.
Total Daily Reach is also useful. Here, you’ll see the number of people your posts may have reached (even from friends of your fans).
If you’re proficient with Excel, you can slice and dice your data to find out even more about your page performance and social media impact.seosites
My recommendation: Don’t be afraid to dive in and see what’s inside!
Top Data to Pull Using Facebook Insights
One of the most important things you can learn from the Facebook Insights tool is what type of content is most popular and who’s driving the engagement.
You can see data on:seosites
• Page likes and follows
• Reach and impressions
• Engagement metrics
• Post performance
• Audience demographics
• Audience behavior
• Page views
• Video metrics
• Check-ins
We’ll dive a bit deeper into each one to explain how this data can inform your Facebook strategy.blogsbusiness
1. Page Likes and Follows
Everybody likes to be liked, and it’s no different when it comes to your business’s Facebook page. More likes in your Audience Insights data on Facebook mean more people see your posts and content.blogsbusiness
When you click on “Likes,” you’ll be able to see the demographics as well as the locations of your fans. You’ll also be able to see their age groups.
In this example, the Cheap Flights South Africa fan page has a much larger female fan base than a male fan base. We also see that most users are in Cape Town, South Africa, so they should customize their posts accordingly.blogsbusiness