Are Facebook ‘Likes’ A True Measure Of Success?
It's funny, when it comes to Facebook (or any social media for that matter) success is largely judged upon the number of Likes (or Followers, if you're on Twitter). But in reality, this is significantly less important – or should be – to the page owner.
It's all well and good having 'x' hundred Likes but, if people are not engaging with your posts, what is the real value? It would in fact be better for you to have just 10 Likes, and for each of those 10 people to be engaging with you regularly. The trouble with lots of Likes and low engagement is that slowly but surely, Facebook will stop showing your posts in the newsfeed, thanks to its clever EdgeRank system.
So, pay close attention to your 'Insights' and be on the lookout for people with thousands of likes and very few people 'talking about this' – chances are, their 'fans' are not genuine and therefore, the numbers are not to be mistaken for success.
Let's focus on a few relevant metrics you want to keep track of. Visit your page and click on 'Insights'.
Reach:
How many fans are you reaching? This number is a key indicator of how successful your page is. If your fans are actively engaged with your page, your posts will show in their news feed. If your content is not engaging, and your fans are not active, your content won't show for them. The better the content, the higher the reach.
Organic reach is different than fan reach. This data includes both fans and non fans that saw a post. The non fans may have come from a blog or web page widget.
You want to see a difference between fan reach and organic reach. If the numbers are very close, try cross promoting your page on other channels to attract a new set of fans.
Engagement:
Engagement covers a range of actions such as liking, sharing, commenting, watching a video or clicking a link or photo and more. This is the number you will want to look at to see if your content is interesting and valuable to your fans.
When you look at your reach and engagement, do the math to get the percentage for each post. Some posts may just have been shown more than others, so the raw numbers are just a starting point. The formula is:
People Talking About This:
This metric is a measurement of actions. It includes people who like, comment or share. Specifically this metric shows an action that was taken and shown in the news feed to the friends of those fans. This data will show you the virality of your post and is why many businesses are on social media channels. The purpose is to grow the amount of individuals you can reach, to create awareness and grow your brand presence.
Negative Feedback:
If fans are hiding your posts, you want to know! Negative feedback is shown when looking at engaged user data. You will see the number for users that hid a specific post, hid all future posts, unliked your page or reported your post as spam all in one number. For the breakdown you have to download the excel report. Of course, you want this number to be low. If your average negative feedback number is too high, your posts will get less exposure over time. Again you are looking for a percentage of negative feedback for each post.
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