You brand will probably be using Facebook for a number of reasons such as a fan page. You may even have done some advertising on Facebook.

Here’s a list of fan-page-related metrics regarding what you can measure, why you should measure those items, and what the measurements actually mean to you and your brand. You can find these metrics by going to your Facebook page, clicking Edit, This Page, and choosing All Page Insights. Remember that you need to be designated as a page administrator to see the Edit This Page link.

1. Number of fans: If you have a fan page on Facebook, the most basic measure is the number of fans. These are the Facebook users who have specifically chosen to align themselves with your brand. The number of fans largely represents how popular your brand is on Facebook. This is important because you can blast messages to all your fans. You can also see demographic information about them. Along with number of fans, the average growth of fans is an important metric, too. For example, one of the most popular fan pages on Facebook is the Victoria’s Secret PINK fan page, with more than 1.3 million fans. That, in and of itself, is a huge success. But with an average growth rate of 3,000 fans per day, the PINK page is a continuous success. Keep in mind, though, that Victoria’s Secret PINK is one of the top ten Facebook fan pages. Many small businesses have achieved marketing success with even just 1,000 fans.

2. Page interactions: The number of fans is the starting point of Facebook fan page metrics, but page interactions of those fans matter as much. Facebook captures page interactions for you and lets you track the following interactions: total interactions, interactions per post, post quality, stream click-through rate, discussion posts, and reviews.

Look at each of these metrics in more detail:

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• Total interactions: The total number of comments, wall posts, and other fan-driven interactions with the page.

• Interactions per post: The average number of comments, wall posts, and other interactions generated by each post.

• Post quality: An abstract measurement from Facebook indicating the quality of each post. Increased post quality means deeper engagement with your brand.

• Stream CTR: Your stream click-through rate (CTR) and your engagement click-through rate measure how much people engage with your content in a news feed. Stream implies clicks to your fan page from a news feed (the first page you see when you log in to Facebook), and engagement implies click through rates on wall posts that you publish on the Facebook fan page. The social media agency Vitrue says that click-through rates for content on a brand page (engagement click through rate) are as high as 6.49 percent. This data is currently based on a sample, and at the time this chapter was written, the engagement rate statistics weren’t easily verifiable.

• Discussion posts: The number of discussion topics that your fans publish on your fan page.

• Reviews: The number of times that fans use the Facebook Reviews application to rate your page.