Hanging all your Facebook marketing hopes on the number of fans you’ve attracted – and ignoring all else – is a big mistake. You see, every single piece of advertising or marketing you do, both offline and online, should be tracked and analyzed for results.
The only possible way any marketer can understand whether their tactics are actually working or not is to keep a close eye on metrics and analysis figures.
Facebook offers some quite in-depth statistics that you should make good use of at every opportunity. Both Facebook Insights and EdgeRank should feature prominently in your stat tracking.
Facebook Insights
Facebook Insights provide you with relevant metrics that help you track the performance and response for your pages. You can easily download your stats to Microsoft Excel and analyze them at your leisure.
By analyzing trends displayed clearly on Insights, a business owner has the opportunity to analyze any emerging trends and see which types of content are actually eliciting responses from an audience.
Facebook EdgeRank
EdgeRank is like an algorithm that actually works out which news feed posts people see over other posts. It works out which of your fans views your posts as being more worthwhile than, say, a game update from another user.
The precise algorithm isn’t rocket science. It simply looks at various updates made by any given user that give him or her the ‘edge’ over other users within a social network.
For example, if you post a status update, that’s an edge. If you like someone else’s status update, that’s an edge for both of you. If you load a new photo or video, it’s definitely an edge (especially when you figure that photos are the most viewed items on Facebook!).
Every time you interact, you create a little piece of content that is added to algorithm and titled an ‘edge’.
If you log into your Facebook account right now and take a look at your news feed, you’ll see some of your friends’ updates listed there. You won’t see them all.
This is because your EdgeRank is comprised of three different elements.
- Affinity – The Affinity score is actually based on how ‘friendly’ you are with another person. If you frequently look at another person’s profile or interact with them often, you’ll see their updates pop up all the time. However, for those friends you rarely respond to or interact with – their updates may not even show on your feed at all.
- Recent Posts – Obviously, the more recent the post or update, the more likely it is to appear at the top of your feed. Old news tends to disappear off the bottom of the page into oblivion, while new updates and breaking news will appear near the top.
- Edge Weight – The formula behind Edge Weight simply allows for some content to be displayed in news feeds instead of others.
For example, if you ‘Like’ someone else’s status, this is an update. However, if you post a photo, this is considered far more relevant news than what you ‘Liked’, and so the photo is more likely to appear instead.
However, don’t make the mistake of thinking that you need to add photos to every update you post. This simply won’t work. The algorithm also takes into account what other people’s social browsing preferences are too.
For example, if you’re the type of person who really likes to browse photos on other people’s profiles, you’re more likely to see photos appearing. However, if you’re the type of person who is happier to engage in lively conversations that stem from longer posts, these are the type of updates you’re likely to see.
Convert that logic over to what your audience is seeing and relate it to the types of updates you want to post. Obviously, you’ll want to maximize what types of things they see from your page, so being aware of your own statistics and analytical data will give you the best way to do this.
Marketing your business on Facebook can offer you a brilliant opportunity to really grow and enhance your business. The sheer power and reach of social networking media really does help broaden your customer base and increase brand awareness for your business or products.