A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Analytics

Guest Post by Lauren Lacava | Principal Consultant, Black & White Marketing

Social media experts all agree, a Facebook page that is not managed strategically, is not worth doing. Random content posted on an ad hoc basis will not do your brand any favours but luckily, there are some free and easy-to-use tools to help you strategise like a pro.

Reach is defined as how many people you are speaking to or ‘reaching’ with your posts or campaigns. The higher the reach, the more successful your campaign has been. Facebook breaks down reach into ‘organic’ which is your unpaid reach and ‘paid’ which relates to posts/campaigns that you have sponsored. Organic reach is becoming notoriously hard to achieve with the ongoing changes to Facebook algorithms – hence, it is even more important to manage your page strategically and make the most out of your analytical data. By using the free analytical tools, you can be clever about what you post and when.


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Engagement is another key metric and is defined as the rate at which your fans are performing various social activities (likes, shares, discussions, comments) on your posts. The higher the level of engagement, the better. A good level of engagement shows that your fans are relating to you and your brand.

So how do we use Facebook’s free analytical tools to gain more reach and better engagement?

Check your posts

The most basic level of analysis should be to keep an eye on your posts. If you are an administrator of a Facebook page, then you will automatically be able to view your posts reach and engagement. Checking your posts regularly will ensure that you can interact and respond to any comments as well as to monitor how that style of content performed for future reference.

Use the Facebook Insights Tab for monthly reporting

The Insights tab is free to use for administrators and houses lots of useful information such as fan demographics and comparative tools so you can see month on month performance. It is good practice to block out time for monthly reporting and go through each section of the Facebook Insight tab so that you can better know your market; this will enable you to ensure better results next month. By knowing your market, you know who you are speaking to, what they like and where they are. These are all very powerful pieces of information for marketers and enable you to tailor your content very specifically.

You can also use the free Facebook Pages Manager app on your smart phone or IPad to give you live stats on the go.

Facebook Insights Tab - Reach

By going through your results – checking reach and engagement, as well as call to action responses, you are enabling yourself to see what is working and what is not. Like all marketing, you do need to try new things, however if you see something is clearly not working, it is time to pull the pin.

Facebook Insights Tab - Demorgraphics

The Insights tab will allow you to see who you are speaking to (including their gender and age group) which should help you be strategic with your content. It will also tell you what style of posts are working (for example – you might be getting better reach on posts that have an advice or DIY component). Facebook will also tell you what days of the week and times of day your fans are online – this should guide you as to when to post to get better traction.

Set a strategy and measure your outcomes

Social media is a critical marketing activity in any events business. It often gets mistaken as an admin task and allocated to a busy staff member that is not trained to manage such a key piece of marketing.

If you choose to keep your social media management in-house, make sure you allocate time for monthly reporting and set your team goals around consistent posting and positive results. It is good practice to also report on your web stats monthly, to ensure that you are getting some traffic from your social media pages.

Social media results are not all about how many fans you have. Your focus needs to be on engagement and creating content that is in line with your strategy. As with any type of marketing, strategy always comes first, so set yourself some goals and measure them monthly.

Guest post by Lauren Lacava | Principal Consultant, Black & White Marketing

Lauren Lacava has over 18 years’ experience in sales, marketing and management and is the Fearless Leader of Black & White Marketing, a Melbourne-based consultancy and marketing agency that provides real advice and effective marketing solutions to help events businesses grow.