Introduction to Facebook

Facebook was started in February 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes. It has become the second most popular tool after Google among digital marketers. With competitors like Orkut and Myspace having completely faded away, Facebook enjoys a near monopoly in the social networking space. It currently has 2 billion active monthly users worldwide and 213 million active monthly users in India.

Facebook is a social networking website that allows registered users to create profiles, upload photos and videos, send messages and keep in touch with friends, family and colleagues. The main features of Facebook are News Feed and Facebook Messenger. News feed is the constantly updating list of stories in the middle of your home page. News feed includes status updates, photos, videos, links, app activity and likes from people, pages and groups that you follow on Facebook, News feed, also, shows advertisements in the middle of the pages.

Facebook Messenger is an instant messaging service and software application. Facebook Messenger lets Facebook users send messages to each other. Complementing regular conversations, Messenger lets users make voice calls and video calls both in one-to-one interactions and in group conversations. You can also configure Facebook Messenger to receive sound and vibrating alerts every time you receive a message, and even respond via normal text message (phone to phone) if the person you want to talk to doesn't have Facebook (or isn't logged on to it). One of the most entertaining things on Facebook Messenger is its sticker's collection, which you can use to personalise your conversations.

Facebook has four tools called Page, Ad, Group and Event.

A Facebook page is a public profile specifically created for businesses, brands, celebrities, causes, and other organisations. Unlike personal profiles, pages do not gain "friends," but "fans" - which are people who choose to "like" a page. Pages can gain an unlimited number of fans, differing from personal profiles, which has a maximum limit of 5,000 friends. Pages work similar to profiles, updating users with things such as statuses, links, events, photos and videos. This information appears on the page itself, as well as in its fans' personal news feeds.

Facebook ad is an advertisement created by a business on Facebook that's served up to Facebook users based on user activity, demographic information, device use information, advertising and marketing partner supplied information, and off-Facebook activity. Facebook ad can be created by Ad Manager. You can choose the audience and goal and allocate a budget. The ad can be in the form of an image, canvas, video, slide show, collection or carousel. The ad can be displayed on Facebook page, Instagram, Messenger and Facebook Audience Network.

Facebook groups is the place for small group communication and for people to share their common interests and express their opinion. Groups allow people to come together around a common cause, issue or activity to organise, express objectives, discuss issues, post photos and share related content. When you create a group, you can decide whether to make it publicly available for anyone to join, require administrator approval for members to join or keep it private and by invitation only. Like with pages, new posts by a group are included in the news feeds of its members and members can  interact and share with one another from the group.

A Facebook event is a calendar based resource which can be used to notify users of upcoming occasions. Events can be created by anyone, and can be open to anyone or private. The creator can invite his friends, members of a group, or fans of a page. Facebook events are a great way to spread the word on upcoming events or occasions, since they are able to reach thousands of people in a shon amount of time. The event also provides an "RSVP" list, which displays lists of invitees grouped by their response. Invitees are either placed in "attending," "not attending," "may be attending," or "hasn't responded" lists. If an invitee RSVPs that they are "attending" the event, it appears in their news feed to notify their friends. When the date of the event approaches, it is displayed on the invitees home pages to remind them.

Facebook Marketing Strategy

Facebook helps in digital marketing in the following ways:

• To create brand awareness. 

• To generate leads and achieve conversions. 

• To build a relationship with potential buyers

• To drive referral traffic to a particular website.

• To provide customer service.

The steps of Facebook marketing strategy is given in the above diagram

The first step is to set up a dedicated Facebook page for your product or service. Your brand logo should be the profile picture. Use a creative banner as the cover photo of your page. A longer brand description can be given in the "About" section. Also, put up an attractive punchline that grabs the attention. The Coca-Cola example given below illustrates how you can give a professional as well as attractive touch to your Facebook page.

Facebook Analytics

Facebook Insights

The main parameters that are measured in Facebook Analytics are likes, comments, shares and the reach. The "reach" and the "likes" can be both organic and inorganic. Like Google, you can also pay Facebook a certain amount of money to increase the reach of your post, and hence get more likes, comments and forwards. The amount of money that you have to pay to get your desired engagement is determined by Facebook's algorithm called "EdgeRank".

EdgeRank = Posts + Likes + Comment + Share + Updates + Adding Friends

Facebook Insights is a free analytics tool that allows you to easily track the performance of you business or brand's page. With so many different measurable elements such as likes, engagement, reach, and demographics - Facebook Insights gives you a clear picture of where your social strategy stands. Facebook Insights will provide you with everything you had want to know about your Facebook page, your audience, and your customers.

How to Use Facebook Insights

1. Measuring Engagement

When you first access the Insights panel from your page, you will be given an overview of your pages' performance. You can see page likes, post reach, and engagement. In the context of Facebook's Analytics, engagement refers to the percentage of people that reacted to, shared, clicked, or commented on a specific post. You will also be given an overview of your five most recent posts, with information on what type of post it was, when it was published, targeting information, reach, and engagement there as well.

To find the engagement rates of your page, Facebook provides the following instructions:

(a) Click "Insights" at the top of your page.

(b) Click "Posts".

(c) Scroll down to "All Posts Published".

(d) Click the arrow to the right of "Post Clicks/Reactions, Comments & Shares".

(e) Select "Engagement Rate".

Additionally, if you notice that a certain post is doing well, you also have the option to increase engagement even more by clicking on "Boost" to pay for a promoted post.

2. Measuring Likes

One of the most popular things to measure on Facebook is the amount of likes (and other reactions) a certain post or page gets. Being able to see how many people like your page, as well as which posts garner the most (or least) likes, gives you a great overview of how your Facebook efforts are paying off.

To access the "Likes" tab, select it from the top of your page screen next to "Overview" and "Reach". The first graph you will see is the date range tool, which allows you to see your pages' performance over time or according to a specific range of dates. The graph below will show you the total page likes. You can also zoom in and focus on certain dates. In this view, you can see the actual sources of your likes, including:

• Ads

• On your Page

• Page suggestions

• Uncategorised mobile

• Your posts

• Page Likes

• Search

• Posts to Page

3. Unlikes

If you are noticing that the greatest number of likes is coming from ads, it is probably a good sign that you should continue concentrating your time and resources there.

Possibly even more important than the sources of your "Likes", however, are the insights into your "Unlike Sources". Click on the “Unlike Sources" link, and you can see the number of “Unlikes" you received from your page and posts, or from users who unliked your page after hiding a post. This is key information, as you are able to track what type of content is driving people away, and therefore avoid posting similar content in the future. (Add image)

4. Net Likes

When you scroll down the likes page, you will see a graph titled "Net Likes". With the colour coding, you can see the number of “Unlikes" on any particular day, how many likes come from paid sources such as ads, the organic likes, as well as the net likes (organic likes + paid likes unlikes). This data offers you a visual representation of your Facebook content's performance, allowing you to see the trend over time. Notice where the graph dips and peaks, and what content corresponds with these patterns. (Add image)

If you scroll down the page further, you are also able to see exactly where the likes occurred. This graph shows you whether your likes were ads, when a user visited your page, Page suggestions, Mobile, and Uncategorised. While measuring and evaluating, likes is an important basic metric to pay attention to, you definitely need to look at other areas of Facebook Insights to gain a deeper understanding of your content's performance.

5. Reach

Reach is one of the more ubiquitous terms of measurement that many social media marketers struggle with. Simply put, by Facebook: "Post reach is the number of people who have seen your post. Your post counts as reaching someone when it is shown in News Feed. Figures are for the first 365 days after a post was created and include people your post on desktop and mobile". This factors in Facebook's News Feed algorithms, including likes, comments, and shares (i.e., the more of these interactions you have, the further your reach).

Through Facebook Insights, you can see the organic reach compared to the paid reach, showing you which types of posts are doing best and bringing in views. You can also see what types of content are receiving which responses. Are photos seeing a greater reach, or are your videos doing the best? As with the likes measurement, you can also see where your reach hit roadblocks. Where did your audience hide your posts, and what are they reporting as spam? You ideally want to see a pattern where there is less of your content being reacted to in this way, as your reach grows. This information gives you a closer look at the potential of your content, and helps you examine the factors holding your brand's reach back.

6. Visits

Now that you have taken a look at your likes and reach, you need to examine the number of times each of your "Page" or "Page tabs" were viewed. As Facebook explains: "The Visits section of Page Insights can help you understand what people like about your page, whether they have talked about your business on Facebook and how they arrive at your page".

Anytime someone views your timeline, your photos, or other content, it will be tracked here. You can see where people are spending their time on your page, and see what areas they are ignoring. You can also select a specific date range to give you a closer look at when these interactions are happening, and examine the content that was posted then.

In the External Referrers graph, you will see exactly where these visits are coming from, such as search engines, other websites, and social channels. This information is useful if one of your business goals is driving traffic from other sources, as you will be able to see the locations where people are coming to your page from, and focus your resources there.

7. Posts

Next to the "Visits" tab in the Insights tool, the "Posts" tab is the one to explore. This area will let you break down individual posts and pieces of content to see how well they are performing. You will see three headings on this page, labelled "When Your Fans Are Online", "Post Types", and "Top Posts from Pages You Watch".

a) When Your Fans Are Online: This tab helps you recognise, based on data from a one week period, when the best times for posting specific pieces of content are. This information is calculated according to the times most fans are most frequently on Facebook, information that is of obvious value to you.

b) Post Types: This tab helps you evaluate the success of posts based on what kind of content they are. This shows you the top three performing types of content (such as photos, videos, or links) you shared, and the average reach and engagement associated with each.

(c) Top Posts from Pages You Watch: This tab lets you see how pages you are monitoring (such as competitors) are doing. What types of posts get the most engagement and reach on your competition's pages? It is also a good way to gather information about your competition's habits, such as the frequency of their posting and the type of content they are sharing.

8. People

The "People" tab is the one that gives you information about your business' most valuable component your customers and audience. You are able to see detailed demographic information that's compared with the general Facebook population, helping you understand your audience at a much deeper level. What content do they like the best? What kind of content do they ignore or hide? When are they online most often? Paying close attention to this area of Insights great idea if one of your main goals is audience engagement, as the data gathered here will help guide your strategy from an audience focused perspective. 

You will notice that there are a few tabs in this section, but the "Your Fans" one is a great place to start. Here, you will be able to see:

• The percentage of people who like your page, categorised by age, gender, and other information shared on personal Facebook profiles.

• The geographic location of those who like your page.

• The first language of those who like your page.

The other tabs, "People Reached" and "People Engaged", use these same demographics to show who is seeing and interacting with your content. This information is important. Facebook explains: "When you understand who your audience is, you can create content just for them. For example, if you have a business that sells to both men and women, but see that women engage with your posts more often, you can focus on the audience that's actively engaging with you on Facebook".

Whether your business' social media goals include aiming to increase engagement and fans, drive sales, or raise awareness of your brand, using Facebook Insights can help you succeed.