How to see your page performance
Go to your Facebook page and select “Insights” in the left menu.
How to Read Facebook Insights
Don’t get overwhelmed by the numbers. Start by looking at these three important metrics:
- Engagement: How many people clicked, shared, commented, or liked your photo over a given period of time.
- Post Reach: How many people saw your post on their news feed over a period of time.
- Post impressions: How many times your post was viewed.
Questions Facebook Insights Can Answer for You
While we’ve already given you an overview of what you can learn and do with Facebook Insights, here are some common questions you may have that can be answered using the data found in Insights.
How many people saw my post?
Looking at Reach and Impressions will tell you how effective your business page is in reaching potential customers.
These two metrics are important to track and grow, because the higher they are, the more potential customers see your posts. There is no concrete standard metric for Reach and Impressions, but if your current numbers are below your usual average, that means that you may need to post more content or share it to relevant Facebook page groups. Ensure your content is engaging and fun and will not be considered spam for those who see it.
Reach and Impressions also become more relevant when you’re paying for Facebook ads and you want to see how your money expands your pool of potential customers online.
How effective are my posts?
Engagement is the Facebook performance metric that shows you how effective your content is. This means that your audience relates to or likes your content enough that they feel compelled to engage with it by posting a comment, sharing, or reacting. To better appreciate what your engagement numbers may imply, scroll down the Insights section until you see the “Your 5 Most Recent Posts” portion:
This section shows you how your recent posts compare to each other, and it looks something like the screenshot above.
Look at the bar graphs of each type of metric: Reach (orange bar), and under the “Engagement” bar, you see post clicks (blue bar), reactions (pink bar). Looking at these bars, you can see that Post 3 (published on 08/27/20), got a higher-than-average engagement, as it earned more “Post clicks” than the other posts.
When a specific post outperforms other content (like Post 3 in this example), review that post to see what made people want to click on it more than others.
Engagement signals high interest because people don’t automatically like or share a post unless they find it interesting. Knowing what interests your audience helps you create content that drives more people to your page.
Is my page’s fanbase growing?
To monitor if you’re successfully increasing or growing the number of fans your page has, select the “Followers” menu in Facebook Insights. This is where you’ll see how many Followers your page has gained and lost (labeled as “Unfollows”) over the past few months.
In the sample image above, the page stopped gaining Paid Followers from the end of August to early September, while maintaining a steady influx of Organic Followers. The page didn’t run any paid ads during this period, which explains the lack of Paid Followers. Once a new ad campaign started running in early September, Paid Followers grew again (but so did the number of Unfollows).
You may want to monitor if more people are unfollowing your page, as this is an indication that your page has become uninteresting, irrelevant, or spammy for your audience. You can click on the red portion of the graph to see exactly which day your Unfollows peaked, and investigate what you posted that day.
Who’s looking at my page and content?
Select “People” in the same left menu where you selected “Followers”. This section shows some demographic information on your audience, and the top cities where they come from.
If you run a business that delivers to nearby locations, you may want to check which of those locations most of your followers are from.
When is the best time to publish my posts?
Posting content when most of your audience is online can help improve your reach and engagement. The “Posts” menu of Facebook Insights will show you when your fans are online. Check their browsing behavior per day, and schedule your posts accordingly.
How is this particular post performing?
You can also click on a post on your homepage to view its metrics and determine how well it’s performing. Your two important Facebook metrics (People Reached and Engagements) for that specific post can be seen there.
You can also check for any negative feedback. Are there people who hid your post? Did someone report your post as spam? Taking note of these things will help you optimize your content.
