Getting the most from Facebook Insights part two

Last week in part one we looked at how to get the most Facebook Insights, one of the most versatile tools available to you when using social media to promote your nonprofit fundraising activities. We reviewed ‘getting started’ and the ‘landing page’ on Facebook and today we’ll dig a little deeper. Insights has been enhanced so much by the changes implemented last October that I highly recommend that you explore the tool in full.

Posts on Facebook Insights (click to enlarge)

Posts: From the landing page now click on ‘Posts’, this page provides layers of information about when people visit your page and how they engage with your updates. It’s important to try to find a rhythm to how you use your page, whether you update it once, twice or more times per day try that consistently for a while – then this information really gains in stock. At the top of the page you’ll find the default view of your daily visitors over the last seven days and the average visits per hour for that week (see image to the right, please click to enlarge). If you mouse over any day of the week you can then see the hourly traffic for the specific day selected.

I recommend checking this page at least a few times per month as any scheduling changes you make to your posted content will change your results. In the visual example provided there is good consistency throughout the days of the week with the weekend seeing slightly more visits of 13,600 and 13,700 versus Wednesday’s 12,800. It also allows you to see at what time visits peak each day, try to schedule your updates just prior to the hours of your maximum visit window. This data also helps if your audience is in multiple time zones.

Below this you’ll find data on all posts published that provides a wealth of information. The graphic below explains further in detail.

Armed with this information you can learn which posts perform best and why they do so, plus importantly you can see if any posts might be losing you any element of your audience.

People:  So who exactly are your audience and are they engaged? Insights will help you better understand this via the ‘People’ tab. Contained within is data about the demographics of those who like your page and posts. The information breaks down your audience by age and gender and also compares those percentages with the entire Facebook audience. Ask yourself whether your current Facebook audience matches well with your target demographic and how you can move these numbers. For example you may see the largest portion of your audience be the 35-44 age group but they are the perhaps less ‘engaged’ (commenting, sharing, liking) and you can evaluate why that may be.

Worth noting is that over the last 12 months Facebook is showing rapid growth in the 40+ demographic but has been losing some of the under 30 market. Bench-marking this data perhaps monthly or quarterly can really help you in your quest to reach donors. What may also be useful is the data provided about the location of your engaged page followers. 

I hope that this information allows you to get more from Facebook  Insights and if you have any questions please post them in the comments below. In part three we’ll look in more depth at the  likes, reach and visits sections within Insights.

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.