This post may contain affiliate links which may give us a commission at no additional cost to you. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
Friends, I am not an analytical person. One look at my website, One Artsy Mama, will prove that I’m a creative, right-brained artist all the way. I think in images rather than numbers and spend as little time as possible doing anything that involves math. That being said, I’ve learned that as a business owner, it’s absolutely essential to take the time to view and understand what my Facebook Page Analytics have to say.
5 Things You Can Learn from Your Facebook Page Analytics
No matter what your blog niche is, understanding your page’s data and using it to guide your business decisions is a key to continued success. Today, I want to walk you through five important things you can learn from your Facebook Page Analytics, as well as how to apply those things to how you run your site on a daily basis. I’d like to welcome you to my little corner of Facebook so we can dive in together.
I’m sure many of you are already familiar with where to find your analytics, but in case you’ve never checked them out, take a look at the menu across the top of your page above the cover photo. You’ll see these options: Page, Messages, Notifications, Insights, and Publishing Tools. We’re going to click on “Insights,” which is where you’re going to find tons of useful information that Facebook collects for you.
The first thing you’ll see is a quick summary of how your page has performed over the past week. It’s an overview of how many page views and page likes you’ve received, how many engagements your posts have gotten, and more. There are also little green or red indicators letting you know how those numbers compare with your numbers from the previous week. It’s a good way to see at a glance if things are generally trending upward or not. A quick look at my numbers shows me that although I shared fewer videos in the past week, my views, reach, and engagement are still increasing. That’s good news!
Once you’ve looked at the overview, it’s time to dive in and check out some of the specifics that are going to help guide you as you make decisions about your business.
1. WHO (and where) YOUR AUDIENCE IS
Every brand has a target audience in mind. Think about it. Nike focuses on athletes. Disney caters to young children and families. The NFL makes its decisions with men in mind. Certainly, folks outside of the target audience can enjoy and buy what these companies offer, but the marketing and business strategies of the brand focus on the people they are targeting. In order to best serve your audience, you have to find out who they are! There is a particular demographic whose interests line up with what you have to offer. To discover it, click on “People” in the menu on the left of your screen.
The first thing you’ll see is an overview of the people who like your page, nicely charted for you in a bar graph. (Thanks, Facebook!) Look at the things I can learn about my audience from this graph. A whopping 96% of my audience is women. Since my niche is crafts, this isn’t really a surprise, but some of you may find that your audience is more split than you imagined. Now, take a look at the highest bars. 76% of my readers are between the ages of 25-55, and more than half of them are between 25-44. What does this tell me? My audience is mostly composed of young to middle-aged wives and moms who are looking for ideas that apply to their families’ daily lives. This is crucial! By knowing who my readers are, I know what they’re looking for. These are women want quick, affordable, and easy ideas that still bring beauty and creativity to their lives. When I provide those kinds of posts, we all win. This page also tells me that a vast majority of my audience is US based, as am I, which is important to keep in mind when it comes to things like holidays, cultural references, current events, etc.
Besides helping you to determine what content will best meet your readers’ needs, these stats are incredibly useful when you want to partner with other companies. Some will directly ask for information about your reader base, and even if they don’t, you can include it in your pitch to explain why you think their product would be a perfect fit for your audience.
2. WHEN YOUR AUDIENCE IS ONLINE
Once you’ve determined who your readers are, the next important piece of the puzzle is finding out when they are actually online. To locate this data, choose “Posts” in the left hand menu of your Facebook page analytics, and you’ll see two graphs; one representing days of the week, and one representing times of day.
First, take a look at what days your audience is most likely to be on Facebook. I was shocked to see that for the most part, my readers are equally present all week long. I used to assume that there was a significant drop off on the weekend, so I did very little {if any} posting on Saturday and Sunday. I didn’t engage or promote anything because I figured no one would see it. I was wrong. As a matter of fact, Sunday is when the highest number of my readers are online!
The other helpful information I learn from these charts is that my readers are most active and engaged online between 9 AM and 10 PM. As I schedule my daily Facebook posts, I keep this in mind, scheduling things every other hour beginning at 8:55 AM and ending at 10:55 PM. I don’t worry about scheduling posts overnight because that’s when most of my audience is sleeping. My highest numbers are right around 9 PM, which goes along with what I know about who my readers are…moms who have just put their kids to bed and are enjoying some alone time. That is a great time to reach them!
3. WHAT TYPES OF POSTS TO SHARE
While you’re in the “Posts” category, click on the second tab at the top, “Post Types.” This will show you how the various types of posts that you share perform on Facebook. Unfortunately, this part has little to do with the actual reaction of your audience and everything to do with Facebook’s algorithms, but it still will help you as you decide how and what to share.
My graph in this section confirms what I have long known to be true about Facebook in regards to business pages. Simple, plain status updates will be shown to the greatest number of people who like your page. Posts with an original photo attached (uploaded from your own device) are next best. Videos come in third, and look at how pitifully shared links perform. You see, Facebook doesn’t like letting you advertise for free, so they choose to be very limited when sharing posts that include links with your audience. My average reach for a link post is just 382 people. That’s literally about 2% of the people who like my page. Two percent of my audience is getting to see the links I share. Let that sink in.
So, what does this tell us? When you’re trying to promote a blog post, instead of including the link, just write a description and perhaps upload a photo. Then, place the link to the post in the comments section. It’s still totally accessible, but it will give an instant boost to the number of people who see the post in the first place! Keep these stats in mind as you decide how to share your content.
4. WHICH POSTS PERFORMED BEST
Now, let’s scroll down and look at the performance of the actual posts you’ve shared on Facebook. Click on the word “Reach” and the chart will reorganize itself to show you the posts with the highest reach first. Take a look at your top posts. What do they have in common?
Are your most popular posts craft projects? Recipes? Crochet patterns? Funny memes (that’s what my readers love)? Are they about a certain topic? What is it that makes these posts connect with your audience? Identify those things and use them when you decide what content to share on your page. My readers love to laugh, so I’m always on the lookout for jokes about parenting and crafting that I can share. Even though those posts won’t lead them directly to my blog, it builds engagement and rapport, and they’ll continue to come back for more.
5. WHEN & WHERE YOUR PAGE LIKES HAPPEN
Finally, let’s click on the “Likes” tab in the left hand menu. All of us want to grow our reader base and see that fan number rise. Finding out when and where our likes happened can help us to figure out what is bringing new eyes to our page.
The first graph shows a summary of your daily likes and unlikes over the past month. Pay special attention to any big spikes. For example, the 17th of September was a good day for me as far as gaining new fans. My next step would be to look back and see what I shared that day that may have brought people to the page. What was it that resonated with them and made them want to come back for more? Was it a post about a certain topic? Something particularly timely and relevant? Something funny? Whatever it was, I should try to share similar things to see if I get a similar result.
The second graph shows that most people who like my page do so from my page itself. They somehow end up there and then decide to click “like.” It’s worth trying to think of ways to direct new eyes to my page, for example from my blog site and my shop, in the hopes that they’ll like what they see and stick around.
There are many more things we can learn from our Facebook page analytics, which you’ll see as you continue to click on the various tabs and explore the data Facebook has to offer. The best part is that it’s all free information, compiled for you automatically without you doing a thing.
Today, take some time to examine the five particular areas we’ve talked about and see what they tell you about your specific Facebook page. Who is your audience? When are they online? What types of posts and what topics do they engage with? What makes them like your page and come back for more? Then, take that information and use it to shape the way you market your business. Happy readers will stay for the long haul and they’ll tell their friends too. Good luck, fellow entrepreneur! Go get ‘em!
Keep Reading
- How To Stand Out On Social Media
- Essential Tools to Manage Your Social Media
- How To Use Targeting On Your Facebook Page
- Essential Camera Gear For Beginning Photographers - Aug 12, 2022
- Finding Your Friends on Instagram - May 3, 2022
- Magic Mosaic Easter Egg Coloring - Mar 5, 2022
- 11 Recipes For National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day - Feb 24, 2022
- Our Favorite Things – 2021 Edition (Holiday Gift Guide and Giveaways!) - Nov 15, 2021
- Easy Pumpkin Bread Recipe - Sep 2, 2021
- Low Light Photography Tips for the Holidays - Nov 11, 2020
- DIY 30-Minute Thanksgiving Tree - Nov 8, 2020
- The Spanish Princess Part 2 Is Coming - Oct 8, 2020
- Fabric Pumpkins – DIY in 15 Minutes - Sep 9, 2020
- Jack-O-Lantern Marshmallow Pops - Sep 7, 2020
- DIY Mini Herb Garden - Aug 30, 2020
- Step by Step Plan to Drive Traffic to A New Blog - Aug 30, 2020
- Six Tips to Reduce Stress In Your Life - Aug 30, 2020
- How To Take A Food Photo From Good To Great - Aug 30, 2020
Thank you for these tips! I knew about most of them but I had never seen the one about when my fans are online. It’s not really in the most obvious spot (you’d think it would fall under “people”) so I am really glad you pointed that out!
I use to overlook those statistics but now understand the important of it.
Point no:2 – WHEN YOUR AUDIENCE IS ONLINE – I started observing this and i found that most of the traffic i was getting from Asia region. So i changed my posting timing accordingly. I have now started getting good conversions now.
Thank you for the tips. They are very helpful
This was so useful, I’ve saved it to Pinterest. A great idea to include a link to a blog post in the comments rather than as a normal link
wow as quality content, I’m quite looking forward to the next posts, as follow you.
Facebook Page Analytics is a part of manage Facebook page, i help to use as many time as possible to understand my audience and promote it. both of “WHO (and where) YOUR AUDIENCE IS” and “WHEN YOUR AUDIENCE IS ONLINE” are useful to create post suitable which audience and what time is the best for publishing.
There is so much data out there for the taking.. who knew? Thanks- this adds a new dimension to my posts. Maybe they shouldn’t ALL be at 4 am on the weekdays.. lol.
http://www.myitzy.com
I’m beginning to pay closer attention to my Facebook these days (especially now with having both a page and a group). Thank you for zooming in on the analytics side of Facebook- something I have been neglecting for a bit. I plan to pay more attention to this and your tutorial will definitely be helpful.
Thank you for the tips. They are very helpful.
Thanks for sharing this. This is most beneficial for me .From i come to know about Facebook page analytics.
These analytics may tell us our page liker,visitor and where our post is reaching thanks for sharing your view.