Computer & Internet

Facebook Insights is an application available to all page
administrators.  It measures
exposure, actions, and behavior related to your page.  Insights gives you almost instant data––it is updated 12
hours after the end of each day. 
Available data includes: geographic and demographic information about
your fan base, a record of interactions (comments, wall posts, photo/video
views, “likes”), and the growth of your fan base over time.  All of this information is displayed in
the Fan Dashboard, and most of it can also be downloaded into a spreadsheet so
you can use the data in any way you see fit.

In Practice: How UW–Milwaukee University Housing Uses
Our Facebook Page

I created our Facebook Page
in July 2009.  After the first week of school, we were hovering under 100
fans.  Next, I harnessed the
influence of the Neighborhood Housing Office, who at that time had over 200
fans of their Facebook Page. 
Within two days of suggesting our page to all of their fans, we had over
200 fans as well.  By this point I
felt that our page had enough content and fan support/interaction to go
public.  So, when we launched our
new website on September 10, I included a prominent link to our Facebook Page
on the homepage.  Since then, our
fan base has grown at a modest pace of 3 pans per day, which should put us over
400 fans by the end of this semester. 
Facebook Insights gives me the tools to track this data easily,
especially if I take note of the dates when actions with potential impact on
our fan base occur (other page suggestions, new advertising strategy).

By downloading the Fan Demographic data from Insights, I can
see that 75% of our fans are between the age of 18-24 and 5% are 13-17 years
old.  So, it’s likely that 80% of
our fans are current or prospective students.  The remaining fans are likely staff members and
parents/family members –– yes, we have had a parent become an active fan of our
page!

Knowing who our fans are is not enough; to truly assess our
Facebook activities, I need to know if students are interacting with our
content.  From the Fan Interaction
data set, I can report on the number of total interactions with our content
(74), average number of interactions per post (1), total photo views (1711),
video plays (170), and comments on our content (30).  Astonishingly, our Facebook Page has had 3,875 page views
from 1,234 visitors since its creation. Soon, Insights will also allow page
administrators to see the Click Through Rate and Engagement Rate, which will
provide a clearer picture of how many fans are responding to your content.

Do you use Facebook Insights for assessment or reporting?  How have you used the data?

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