how to track facebook insights on websites

6
2011 Social Media HQ 6/7/2011 White Paper: Facebook Insights for Websites

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In this whitepaper, you will learn how to install the Facebook code to your website/blog, and also you will learn a simple way to analyze the data that Facebook presents. For more content, go to http://blog.socialmediahq.com

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Page 1: How to Track Facebook Insights on Websites

2011

Social Media HQ

6/7/2011

White Paper: Facebook Insights for Websites

Page 2: How to Track Facebook Insights on Websites

Social Media HQ www.socialmediahq.com Page 2

White Paper: Facebook Insights for Websites

Have you wondered how your blog or website links are being passed around in Facebook? You can now

measure the reach of your content by installing Facebook code and registering your website within

http://facebook.com/insights. The dashboard will tell you what links were shared, liked, or sent, how

many times your link was rendered in the newsfeed, and how many times users clicked through to your

website content, among other statistics.

In this white paper, we will explain the steps to install the Facebook code and register your website. In

addition we will explain how you can analyze the data to figure out which content is performing the best

on Facebook.

How to Install Facebook Code

The first step in figuring out your content's reach on Facebook is installing the Facebook code to your

website's html file.

1. At the very top of the html file (before <head>) insert the following code:

<html dir="ltr" lang="en-US"

xmlns:og="http://opengraphprotocol.org/schema/"

xmlns:fb="http://www.facebook.com/2008/fbml">

2. With the <head> tag insert the following meta tags:

<meta property="fb:admins" content="13803832" />

<meta property="fb:page_id" content="156810484344373" />

<meta property="og:image"

content="http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1167/5118470786_5c73060a24.jpg"

/>

<meta property="og:site_name" content="SOCIAL MEDIA HEADQUARTERS" />

<meta property="og:type" content="blog" />

In order to register a website with Facebook Insights, you must have installed the "fb:admins" meta tag

with your profile id. A simple way to access your profile id is to hover your mouse cursor over your

personal profile picture, right click, and copy link location. Now all you need is the numbers on the end

of Facebook profile address.

The other meta tags are optional, and you can find a longer explanation of each tag in the Facebook

Developers Forum here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/opengraph/

Page 3: How to Track Facebook Insights on Websites

Social Media HQ www.socialmediahq.com Page 3

How to Register Your Website with Facebook Insights

The last step of getting started with Facebook Insights on your website, is registering your site with

Facebook at http://facebook.com/insights. You will see a green "Insights for your Website" button in the

top right like below:

After you click on the button, you will want to type in the address of the website that you want to

analyze in Insights. If you have lots of content that is shareable on your main website, type that address

in. If your blog hosts most of your shareable content, then make sure to register the blog address. To be

safe, register both your main website and blog addresses. Next you will want to link the admin to the

website. If you inserted your personal profile id number in the meta tags when you were installing the

Facebook code, you will want to link to your personal profile like below:

Page 4: How to Track Facebook Insights on Websites

Social Media HQ www.socialmediahq.com Page 4

After you type in the website address and match up the admin with the meta tag installed on the

website, click on "Get Insights". If you installed the fb:admin code correctly, you should be all set.

Analyzing the Data

Now that you have Facebook Insights set up, you can now measure how your content is resonating with

the audience, demographics of the audience, click-throughs, content visibility, etc. Let's start with a

simple analysis of Social Media HQ's reach on Facebook.

Overview

Within the given time period that you specify, you can see whether people clicked on the like button or

or shared a link to your site through a status update in the newsfeed or a wall post. Above, you see for

every action taken on your site, it generated 733 impressions for a total distribution of 3,666

impressions on Facebook. From the 3,666 impressions, there were 10 clicks back to your site from

stories within the newsfeed, a page wall, or personal profile walls.

Site Engagement

The next chart that you see will tell you when the actions took place and what type of actions they were.

Likes are when someone clicks on the "like" button placed around your website or blog content. Shares

are when someone includes a link to your website or blog within a status update or a wall post.

Page 5: How to Track Facebook Insights on Websites

Social Media HQ www.socialmediahq.com Page 5

Distribution on Facebook

In the distribution chart, you can find out when your content produces the most amount of visibility and

what type of action produces the most amount of visibility. For example, on Friday, May 27th, a share

story produced over 500 impressions on Facebook. Based on this data, you could dig deeper and find

out who shared the content, the type of content that was shared, and any outside reasons why there

were more impressions than usual.

Referral Traffic to Site

Referral traffic will most likely be the most important factor for evaluating whether like/share stories are

generating interest among your readers' friends and colleagues. Again, you can view when like/share

stories generated the most clicks and what type of story produced the most amount of clicks. From

here, you can investigate what type of content you produced on the day of the click by using your web

analytics service (i.e. Google Analytics).

Page 6: How to Track Facebook Insights on Websites

Social Media HQ www.socialmediahq.com Page 6

Conclusion

Facebook is slowly improving its analytics service, so that marketers and advertisers can justify time and

money spent on its platform. By the end of this year, most experts say that Facebook will be unveiling an

analytics service that rivals Google Analytics. Only time will tell whether this is true.

Now that you have the data to back up you Facebook efforts, give it a try and don't be afraid to hire an

outside consultant to help you analyze your reports. Contact Social Media HQ if you would like to hear

about our consulting services.

Data Source: facebook.com/insights