Vacation Rental Owners Blog

Revamped Tool For Facebook Pages Highlights Info You Can Use

Posted: 24 Aug 2013 09:00 AM PDT

If you feel like you're muddling through your vacation rental’s Facebook marketing with best guesses and spontaneous ideas, you're not alone.

Even if you have a plan that outlines what to talk about and when, refining that plan using Facebook's analytics tool, Page Insights, isn’t always easy; its key metrics — Talking About This, Virality and Engaged Users — have frequently been described as "confusing" and "vague".

This summer, Facebook revamped the Insights tool; it’s now easier to get meaningful information about your Page and its fans.

The new Page Insights (currently available on an opt-in basis) demystifies data by scrapping those categories in favor of something we can all understand. Engagement is now clearly split into Likes, Comments, Shares and Clicks, making it much easier to draw a connection between what you post and how people respond.

Page Insights: A quick overview

Page Insights is now split into four sections:

An overview page provides a top-level glance at the number of likes you have, how active your page has been, and your top-performing posts.
The Page tab helps you track when people Like your Page, how they found you (i.e. via Facebook ads), and where those Likes came from (i.e. directly on your Page, through your posts, etc.).
The main Posts tab gives a full recap of recent posts and their popularity. Secondary pages make it much easier to get a sense of when your fans are online, and the type of posts they interact with most.
The People tab provides a broad look at who your fans are, collating details like where they're from and other basic demographics.

What this info can do for you

If you’ve been building your vacation rental’s Facebook Page — even if it’s been relatively stagnant, but you have a bit of a following — this information can be like gold for your marketing efforts. Facebook is trying to give you what it describes as "Insights you can act on".

While the demographics are obviously limited to guests and potential guests who actually use Facebook, you can use this information to better identify your target audience, shape advertising, track seasonal trends, and give people more of the content they're interested in (both on your Facebook Page and through other channels, like your newsletter).

Learn more

For a more in-depth look at the new Insights, check out these resources:

The Nonprofit Facebook Guy provided this detailed video introduction to the new Insights
(don’t let the name deter you, it’s an excellent intro — nonprofit or not!)
Tabfoundry put together a detailed blog post that goes through Insights section by section

Is Facebook a key part of your marketing efforts? What Facebook metrics do you zoom in on? Share your advice in the comments section below!

Saturday, August 24, 2013