Facing Facebook: Analytics for Amateurs

Even if you are sworn to avoid being swallowed by the social media craze that consumes an inordinate amount of time and energy from a growing number of everyday people, you are a de facto participant if you run an ecommerce business. At the outset of Facebook’s transition from strictly a college kids’ platform to a worldwide social gathering place, few took it seriously enough to consider investing in marketing there. After all, it’s primarily for catching up with high school friends, developing a love life, and commiserating with fellow NFL fans when your team is on a downslide. Right?

Not anymore. Like any other viral entity, Facebook and other social media venues have fine-tuned the art of pitching to businesses. Meet Facebook Analytics, a handy tool provided by the social media platform that crunches data to specifically introduce you to interested parties by way of measuring visitor activity on your page.

The bad news first. Recently Facebook began limiting its “Audience Insight” feature with a new algorithm that restricts this data to users who have liked your page. It’s an unfortunate move in that it delineates potential followers and customers. This privacy-driven decision goes hand in hand with the company’s response to regulatory and consumer discontent. Rolling out Facebook Ads was a big step for the company, albeit to the dismay of many users hoping to escape incessant commercial advertising. But like you, they need revenues, and business owners should look seriously into the unique opportunity they present.

The ability to narrow ad targets to an appropriate audience is huge. You sell a line of hipster cosmetics for young’ns, so why waste your time placing ads on the news feeds of men in their 60s? Unless your role is to advertise jobs or housing, and you were caught up in the very recent debacle in which Facebook is facing charges by Federal authorities for suborning discrimination through demographic targeting (another story altogether), you’re free to select an audience most likely to warm to your goods.
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Yet aside from advertising—or rather to supplement it—your Facebook page itself can yield important information that helps refine product offerings, gauge interest, and stay atop of a marketing plan that works. 

To do that, you’ll want to strongly consider its insight features – as paired down as they now are. Here are the two most useful attributes:

• The program will incorporate your user data uploaded from other sites if you study up and become proficient.
  
  
• It will allow you to analyze data from direct competition, always a critical mission for ecommerce vendors swimming in a massive sea. And once you determine how competitors are faring, you can mine their customer base and entice them to hopping over through targeted ads you compose.

 
Depending on how deep you want to dive, you can accomplish a ton with Facebook’s built-in tools, or you can scope out third-party plug-ins and apps to make Facebook work for you. Here are a few to review.
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The primary lesson here is to set up a Facebook page to begin with, if you haven’t already. It’s a no-brainer because it’s free, interesting, and sure to deliver at least some activity. The amount of time you spend on it should be commensurate with realistic outcomes, but with careful efforts and a keen awareness of how to make it work for you, it can be the difference between so-so sales and a new world of remote customers.