Know your “Likes” with Facebook Insights

Any marketer will tell you that when you know more about your customers, you can send them better advertising messages. The more you target and customize your message to fit your customer base, the better they will respond to your advertising.

If you use Facebook as a part of your marketing plan, you have access to a great resource to get to know who you are really interacting with on your Facebook Page. Facebook Insights for your page are free to access, and they can help you target your content exactly to the types of people who “like” your page.

How to access Facebook Insights:

Insights are a free service provided by Facebook to anyone who has a Facebook Page. To check your page’s insights, simply go to your company’s page and click the “View Insights” link on the left side [see picture below].

Once you pull up the insights for your page, you will have access to several different types of data about your followers. Here are the things to pay attention to:

Are your “likes” and interactions increasing?

One of the keys to building a good page is building a following of engaged customers on Facebook. The “Page Overview” from insights can tell you how successful you are in doing this. From these graphs, ask yourself a few questions about the trends shown on your graphs.

1. How many Likes does your page have? Is it increasing over time?
2. How often do followers comment or interact with your content?
3. Are there any significant peaks in the chart? If so, what caused the peak?

• When you get a sharp peak in your interaction graph, that means you shared something that resonated with your followers. Take note of it, and make sure to do similar things in the future.

The insights from my page show a moderate rate of increase in new likes and interactions. If both your likes and interactions are increasing by a healthy percentage each month: keep doing what you’re doing, because its working.

Who are your followers, really?

The greatest strength of Facebook Insights is its demographic data that it provides. If you click on the “users” link on the left, you will see many different types of data about the people who like your page. When looking at your demographic data, keep these questions in mind:

1. Do more men or women like your page? How old are they on average? Is it what you expected?
   • When checking your demographics, its important to define what you think your target market is. If your target market is working moms, you may find that you have a large following among college age men. Facebook Insights data are a great way to check your assumptions about your target market to see who you are really talking to.
2. Where are your followers located? Are there any pockets of followers in a city you don’t expect?
3. Where are your external referrals coming from? You may find a site you didn’t know about previously that is sending traffic to your Facebook Page.
4. Are your followers checking out the extra tabs that you added to your page? Which tabs are most popular?

My advice to you is to use these questions to probe your insights page for unexpected results. What can you find out about your customers that you didn’t know previously? See if your trends and demographics hold true over different months of the year. Whatever it is that you find out, write it down somewhere (remember that marketing plan you made? It might be time for an update if it’s been a while).

Use your data to check your assumptions

We all have assumptions about who we think our customers are. Whenever possible, it is a good idea to test your assumptions about your customers with objective data.

By using the questions outlined above, you should be well on your way to testing your assumptions about your target market. Use this opportunity to either validate what you assume about your customers, or to update your marketing plan to include a more accurate picture of your customers.

Tailor your message to your demographic:

Now that you know who your Facebook followers are, use this information to connect with them better. Find content to share that will resonate with your particular demographic and location.

The more you tailor your message to your customers, the more your customers will interact with your material. In Facebook marketing: targeted messages = better interaction = stronger customer relationships and better brand experiences.

Once you make your changes, check to see if your interactions increase:

The data gathering shouldn’t stop here! You can use the interaction trends to see if your targeted messages really are increasing interactions with your customers. With all of this great data available from Facebook Insights, it just makes sense to find out what actually resonates with your customers.

What insights have you gained from your Facebook Insights page?

I hope this has been an informative primer to the power of Insights for your Facebook marketing strategy. Have you found anything interesting about your customers by using Insights?

Leave a comment below with your experiences. Happy Marketing!