If you have recently set up your own business and are just getting started with your social media accounts, then the various metrics to measure your success can often get confusing. The social media platforms provide all different types of metrics, but Facebook gives more data than any other with the only other platform coming close being LinkedIn.
However, this certainly isn’t a bad thing because it means you can identify and analyse the data points which are most important to your business. Having all of this data available is amazing, but a lot of businesses choose to outsource their social efforts to a social media marketing agency who are able to make informed decisions to help them grow. But, if you would like an insight into what the different Facebook metrics are and why you should measure them; keep reading this short but informative article.
Reach
Reach is a relatively simple metric to understand as it basically shows how many users have seen your content. Reach includes both paid ads and organic content. Over the past couple of years, Facebook has been consistently updating their algorithms which means organic reach for businesses has decreased, but this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t measure it. It helps you understand what your target audience likes and engages with, and why specific posts do better than others.
Engagement
The second metric we are going to cover is the single most important one you should measure for your business, but for 2 reasons. The first one is because it tells you that users are liking the content you are sharing. The second is because it helps indicate what type of content they like, which enables you to determine what to share in the future.
Impressions
Another metric that is related to reach and engagement is impressions. Reach, and engagement tells you how many Facebook users saw your content, but impressions measure the number of times your content was seen. Impressions are a good indication of the viral nature of a post. For example, a user may see a piece of content on their own news feed and then again if one of their friends share it; this is 2 impressions.
Page Likes
Page Likes are the number of users that follow your business’s Facebook page. They have liked your page because they want your content to appear in their news feed. You can think of them as subscribers. Measuring page likes is extremely simple, but if you want to go in more depth, then you can visit the Page Likes section in reporting. Once there, you can see how many likes you have gained over a certain amount of time. As well as analysing how many of your likes are organic and how many are from paid ads.
Video Engagement
Just like normal text/photo posts, engagement is a crucial metric to measure for videos too. In addition to seeing likes, comments and shares, video engagement shows you how many times your video content has been played. So, don’t just post video content and simply forget about it. Go through Facebook Insights and have a look at the data to ensure users are viewing and engaging with your video content.
Actions on Page
Measuring actions on page means you will be able to understand what users are doing when they arrive on your page. There are a few actions that Facebook consider actions such as clicking on your phone number, clicking through to your website, or clicking on your call to action button.
Facebook Ads: CPC and CPM
When it comes to paid advertising, Facebook gives businesses two different options for how they will be charged for their ads. The 2 most popular are known as cost per click (CPC) and cost per thousand impressions. With the CPC model, you are charged every time a user clicks on your ad(s).
This is the most common ad model since you’re paying for actions rather than just having your ad displayed to a pre-defined audience. The CPM model is very different because you are charged for every thousand impressions that your ad(s) generate. This option is less attractive amongst business owners because they have to pay whether users actually take action or not. But, it’s really helpful if you are testing different ad variations.
Facebook Ads: CPA
Cost per action (CPA) should always be measured because it tells you whether your ads are working or not. Instead of just paying for ad clicks, CPA measures how much you have spent compared to specific actions. It’s crucial to measure this metric because it gives you a valuable insight into the return on investment for your Facebook advertising campaigns.
