Using Facebook Insights to Track the Like Button, Box, and Shares

In a previous article we provided a tutorial on how to add a Facebook Like button and Box to your blog. Now that visitors are ‘liking’ the articles and Fan Page wouldn’t it be nice to see statistics and demographics that will provide a better understanding of your audience? For example, if a majority of visitors are female (and from Wisconsin) you might want to start selling pink Cheeseheads alongside the blog articles. Stick around as we walk you through a brief and easy tutorial on how to track your Like button, Like box, and Share button using Facebook Insights.

Step 1: Facebook Insights Dashboard
In your browser go to http://www.facebook.com/insights/.

Step 2: Insights for your Domain
Once at the dashboard click the green button to the right that reads Insights for your Domain.

Step 3: Get Insights for Your Domain
After clicking the green button the ‘Get Insights for Your Domain’ box will appear. The next step is to type in your website URL to the right of ‘Domain’. Next to ‘Link With’ click the drop-down menu and choose your Fan Page.

Step 4: The meta property…
Copy the meta property tag provided by Facebook. This will be added to the homepage of your website.

Step 5: Add the meta tag
Find the homepage, or root file, of your website and add the meta property tag between the beginning and closing tag. (Contact your website team if you are unfamiliar with HTML markup.) Upload the file to the hosting server. Then come back to the Facebook Insights dashboard.

Step 6: Check Domain…
Once at the dashboard click Check Domain.

Be patient, it might take some time. You will see the following ‘Loading’ screen.

A warning might appear if you are not the ‘official’ administrator of the fan page. This means you have to ask the person that first created the fan page to follow the steps above… or log in with their login and password.

Problems? Maybe the Meta tag was not properly added to the homepage of the website. Double-check your Insights settings and markup.

Success!
When a graph and a bunch of zeros appear then you know it’s finished. The data will not appear for about 24 hours (could be longer). This might be a good time to increase your fan base… you know… post something interesting on your wall and create content that your fans will find engaging.

A dashboard of activity
The Sharing dashboard provides analytics about the daily likes, daily shares, feedback per share, and reshare rate. Visit Help Center for more details.

Demographics…
Depending on how many fans, Facebook might not provide demographic data, such as age and gender; or geographic data, such as country, city, and spoken language. If your Fan Page does meet the minimum requirements you will have the ability to view the information mentioned above.

By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content, Page owners are better equipped to improve their business with Facebook.

– Facebook Help Center

Conclusion
Facebook is providing analytics, both demographically and geographically, to administrators of Fan Pages. This is good news. Think about this; Google Analytics provides a wealth of information (including geographical) but unfortunately cannot (at this time) tell the age or gender of your visitors. Insights through Facebook can provide this type of data. Of course, if someone lies about his or her age then you might have a problem.