Facebook Is Fixing A Delay In Reporting Page Views [UPDATED]

Posted by AllFacebook on January 30th, 2012 4:59 PM

20 Comments

Facebook has acknowledged delays in reporting of page views, or impressions.

Admins had told us that page insights only showed up through January 24, and that other metrics such as reach seemed off kilter.

Facebook has said it is aware of the issue and is working on fixing it as we write this. Read the rest of this entry »

You Can Still Find Out Who Unsubscribed On Facebook — Here’s How

Posted by David Cohen on January 17th, 2012 12:16 PM

22 Comments

The “unsubscribed” metric may have been removed when Facebook launched its new page-insights platform in November, but the information can still be unearthed with a little digging.

Read the rest of this entry »

10 Upgrades That Revolutionized Facebook This Year

Posted by Jackie Cohen on December 23rd, 2011 6:02 PM

14 Comments

What a year Facebook has had, at least when it comes to upgrades.

Changes to the site in 2011 have improved engagement, safety and monetization.

That said, here are the 10 most significant improvements that Facebook made in 2011, not necessarily in any order.

1. Timeline

Most people on Facebook have yet to upgrade their profiles to timeline, but those who have are raving about the depth of content in this advanced profile.

2. Inline Privacy Controls

Facebook moved most of the privacy controls to locations next to where people share content on the site. This strategy has spurred more people to avail themselves of these features than ever before.

3. Subscribe

Many have called Facebook’s subscribe button an effort to emulate Twitter, but this profile feature is quickly becoming a must-have for people who want to present themselves as thought leaders.

4. Immune System

This nickname for Facebook’s nickname for its security technologies cropped up inthe media this year, but the term immune system really sums up the collective effect of the bold steps the social network has made to dramatically reduce the frequency of spamware, clickjacking and other digital maladies that used to crop up regularly. Some of the more significant moves have been:

Partnering with Web of Trust has enabled the site to identify and block posts that include insecure web addresses;
A social verification system provides a means of recovering lost passwords through trusted friends;
Log-in approvals send code to mobile devices so users can authenticate attempts to access accounts from unrecognized machines; and
Smart friend lists create groupings of contacts with things in common, all but forcing people’s hands to use this features for microsharing instead publicly posting everything for all to see.

5. GraphRank

Facebook has altered the method it uses for prioritizing content in the news feed on home pages. Although some people insist that the move from the old algorithm EdgeRank to the new one, GraphRank really has dramatically changed the content appearing on homepages — more targeted and engaging posts show up.

6. Ticker

The ticker has added movement to people’s homepages with the scrolling updates about all friends’ activity on the site, differing from the engagement-oriented news feed taking up the wider middle column.

7. Talking About This

Facebook’s revamped page insights include a really nifty metric visible to all: Talking about this. Showing visitors how many people are posting on Facebook about the page’s title may inspire more people to reshare content from that page.

8. Negative Feedback Metrics

Facebook has only just begun to test measurements of negative feedback on pages’ posts, which are based on what people put in their news feeds. This statistic has the potential to help page administrators greatly improve their content.

9. Sponsored Stories

Facebook’s best-performing type of advertisement, sponsored stories launched in January of 2011 and the social network subsequently created seven different variations on the promotion. All refrain an individual’s interaction with a brand to that person’s friends, the most popular variety telling people who likes the advertiser. The site plans to move these ads into news feeds starting next month.

10. Credits Incentives

This year Credits became mandatory for all applications that request payment in exchange for premium content, and developers that use the digital currency exclusively get a host of incentives that can help generate more income. These include:

Get balance, which shows individual users’ balances to developers;
Buy with friends, which encourages people to recommend purchases; and
Frictionless payments, which enables gamers or shoppers to pay for goods without leaving the application.

What do you think were the most important upgrades on Facebook this year, readers?

Only 9 Days Left To Learn The New Facebook Page Analytics

Posted by Brian Carter on December 6th, 2011 12:22 PM

5 Comments

Facebook launched new page insights two months ago, and will start phasing out the old metrics on December 15.

You’re not alone if you feel any confusion about the new metrics. This post clears up how to read the new data compared to how you read the old data, and if you do the exercise below before Facebook closes old insights, you can find out how often your unique post-viewers are seeing your posts.

The New Metrics

In the old insights, we saw the impressions and feedback rate for each of our last ten posts. What was missing was reach, the unique number of individuals we were reaching (that differs from impressions, which are essentially hits or views).

In the new metrics, we get reach, engaged, talking about this, and virality. What’s missing is the frequency with which we reach each of these unique users.

If you want to get frequency, right now you can compare the same posts in the old and new insights and figure that out. Just divide the impressions by the reach. For the three posts above, I get 2.81, 2.77, 2.57.

That frequency is pretty consistent, and that makes sense if it’s related to EdgeRank.

I expect frequency has a lot to do with the number of engaged users; what we know about EdgeRank is that the higher the feedback rate, or the more likes and comments we get, the more impressions we get. That can mean bigger reach (more unique viewers) and more frequency (staying visible longer and being seen more times).

You can still calculate the old feedback rate by dividing reach by engaged users. Or you can get it directly if you have PageLever (they call it engagement rate, or ER).

If Your Numbers Disappoint You

The first thing you need to understand, and communicate to your organization, is that we never knew the true reach of our posts before. We only knew impressions. We already knew that the ratio of impressions to fans for many pages was lower than we’d like, but many assumed that impressions weren’t much different from reach.

Now we can see exactly how many of our fans we’re really reaching. It might be a stunningly low percentage. A lot of data has come out in the last 6 months reporting that only 2% – 16% of most pages fans see their posts. The new reach metric makes that reality hit home even harder.

There’s a good chance you and any executives involved won’t be happy with the real numbers. So it’s time to follow some of the best practices below:

Always ask for a like or comment in your post. This is called a “call to action”. It increases engagement which increases visibility (reach and frequency). Even adding “tell us in the comments below” to a question can make a difference.
Realistically appraise your fan base. If it’s old and unengaged, you might need to acquire new fans with ads, or at least run sponsored stories or a page post ad to try to reactivate fans who can’t see you (but is that more expensive than getting new fans?). You might even consider starting over with a new page. It doesn’t matter how many fans you have. It matters how many you reach. Even if you take this drastic step, don’t trash the old page. You can use the friends of fans in creative ways via Facebook ads.
Make sure your posts are stimulating. It takes a deep understanding of your audience, creativity, and discipline to post daily in a way that consistently gets responses. If you haven’t really tapped into your audience’s passions, cares, worries, and loves – in other words, their emotions – then you might be having trouble in this area.

Brian Carter is author of the new book The Like Economy: How Businesses Make Money With Facebook, and co-author of Facebook Marketing: Leveraging Facebook’s Features For Your Marketing Campaigns.

AllFacebook.com edited an image from Shutterstock.