And the Facebook announcements just keep on coming. Today, we learn about Facebook's new metrics within the Insights tool, a new premium ad unit, and the Facebook Insights API.
Let's dive right into what these new features are and what they mean for marketers.
New Metrics in Facebook Insights
In addition to existing metrics provided by Facebook Insights, Facebook is now also providing three new metrics: 'People Talking About This,' 'Number of Friends of Fans,' and 'Weekly Total Reach.'
1. 'People Are Talking About This' Metric: Slated to roll out to users this week, this new metric measures 'stories,' or content users share on Facebook that can be featured in users' News Feeds. In other words, it's a metric that counts instances of people liking your page (i.e. becoming a 'fan'); posting to your page’s wall; liking, commenting on, or sharing content (posts, videos, photos, albums, etc.) on your wall/Page; answering a question you posted; RSVPing to your events; liking or sharing a check-in deal; or checking in at your place.
What's important to note about this metric is that, not only will it be available in Facebook Insights for page administrators, but it will also be visible to page visitors as a publicly facing metric on your Page below your Facebook fan ('Likes') count. To us, what it sounds like is a public-facing version of Facebook's EdgeRank, Facebook's algorithm for determining what gets displayed in users' News Feeds.
2. 'Number of Friends of Fans' Metric: This new metric gives page admins a count of the total number of friends a page's fans have collectively. It gives page administrators more insight into the potential reach of their page.
3. 'Weekly Total Reach' Metric: Facebook Insights will now also report Weekly Total Reach, which is a measure of how many total people have posted something about your page, how many news organizations within Facebook have referenced it, and how much viral distribution the elements of your page have generated.
Facebook's Expanded Premium Ad Unit
Today, Facebook has introduced the Expanded Premium Ad unit, which combines a business page's posts with social context. The new ad unit will not appear in a user's News Feed, but it will expand if a user's friend has liked it, allowing users to comment, like it, and see other comments related to the ad.
Facebook Insights API
Facebook also announced that all the existing and new metrics available in Facebook Insights will now also be available through the Facebook Insights API, which is available to the analytics developer community.
Marketing Takeaways
Facebook's new metrics and advanced advertising functionality means a number of important things for marketers.
While the new metrics available to Facebook page administrators is helpful for marketers to measure and understand how effective their content is at engaging fans, the 'People Talking About This' metric is particularly noteworthy. Because it will be visible as a publicly facing metric, marketers must understand how this will affect their ability to attract new fans. New visitors to your page may start using the metric to gauge whether they want to become a fan, so the higher your score, the better. Because a more engaging page with more likes, comments, and interaction will mean a better 'People Talking About This' score, marketers must focus on creating a page that generates more engagement and interaction.
In addition, Facebook's new premium ad unit can be very beneficial to marketers, as it leverages the power of social recommendations. According to research conducted by Nielsen, when Facebook users see their friends’ names on Facebook social ads, they’re twice as likely to remember the message and four times more likely to buy the product. This means marketers' Facebook ads might be even more effective if they're created using Facebook's new premium unit.
What do you think of Facebook's new announcements?
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Pilot Shop 4:18 PM on October 03, 2011
Guess this means I need to get my fanbase up to have content viewed more often. I have been neglecting the facebook until now. I do like the targeted ad audience.
Damien 6:39 PM on October 03, 2011
Great! The "people talking about this" insight will give brands a great snapshot of the engagement levels of competitors and industry leading pages so as to better compare and set engagement benchmarks. I'm also very interested in the Reach/engaged users/Talking about this section that is seen at the bottom of the screenshot! Any insights on this?
Justin Dupre 8:33 PM on October 03, 2011
Great job by Facebook to provide us with these three new metrics.
Anonymous 2:49 AM on October 06, 2011
You didn't share the MOST IMPORTANT information - What is the period of time included in this "people talk about it"? Last 24 hours, last week, month?
Is it the same time criteria to all pages, or is it programmed not to go down under a particular number? And for example if your page is below 20 000 likes, People talk about it will be set to show last week's interactions (so the number to be higher) and if your page is over million likes it will show last 24 hours interactions(because the number will be certainly high enough)?
Mark | Malta 6:56 AM on October 06, 2011
I'm asking same question as the previous commenter, maybe someone replies. "People talk about" relates to last day, week, month?
Whitney 11:40 AM on October 06, 2011
I'm in the same boat - wondering what is the time period for the "talking about this" number. Over the last 24 hours, I have earned 300 new likes to my page, and 30+ comments on my wall - several of which I have replied to. But only 9 people are "talking about" my page. What is the period of time this number is representing and it seems a bit off gauging from the 24 hours of action on my page.
Whitney 12:01 PM on October 06, 2011
Just saw this on AdAge's website..."Four metrics will be presented at the top of the page: Total Likes, which already appears in the existing Insights; Friends of Fans, designed to show the maximum social reach of brands' content; People Talking About This, tracking the number of users who engaged with a page's content in the past week – by liking or commenting on content, posting to a page's wall, or RSVP'ing to an event, for example; and Weekly Total Reach, which shows the total number of Facebook users who have been exposed to both a brand's organically shared content and its paid media."
natalie 4:41 PM on October 28, 2011
Is there anyway you can block the metric "People are talking about this" to the public. I understand some people are very excited about this new feature but I think it goes too far. If you are trying to promote a business on FB you don't necessarily need/want your customers or potential customers to see this number. Sure its great for the admins, but if you dont have a high metric it doesn't look great for new customers.