Three killer tools to measure your Facebook clout

Fotolia 301479 XS Three killer tools to measure your Facebook clout

Your organization created a Facebook Page a few months ago. You’ve employed a few creative strategies to build up connections on your Page, increase engagement, and have even used it to promote a fundraising event.

But you know that for the most part, you’ve been winging it. And you know that if you had better info about the impact of your efforts on Facebook, you’d get even more love. Or at least you’d get more like.

Four critical questions for Facebook marketers

Once you have clear goals for what you want out of Facebook, you should be able to clearly answer four questions:

  1. How far are we away from our goal?
  2. How can we more effectively reach our goal?
  3. What tactics worked?
  4. What tactics wasted time?

There are three tools that can give you answers to these questions.

  1. Facebook Social Page Evaluator by Virtue
    4638632613 609b1e3834 Three killer tools to measure your Facebook clout

    The Social Page Evaluator by Vitrue This app looks at the number of people who have liked your Page and your post quality. It shows your current effectiveness on Facebook vs. your potential, although it’s not clear how a Page’s potential is calculated. You can get this type of data – and more – from Facebook Page insights (see number three). What makes this killer is that you can adjust your earned media value using a slider.

  2. Facebook Page Grader by Hubspot4639241530 40969a828c Three killer tools to measure your Facebook cloutThis tool gives you a percentile ranking of your Page based on the number of likes you have, the power of your network of connections, and the completeness of your page.
  3. Page Insights by Facebook
    4639979684 63350507b2 Three killer tools to measure your Facebook clout

    Probably the best way to measure your Page is by using your Page Insights. Back in January, I showed you 11 stats you should be tracking. Now, with post-level insights, you can see what content your connections like.

Which tool should you use?

If your looking for a simple score to benchmark your Facebook Page, then both Virtue’s and Hubspot’s tools will suffice. In fact, it’s a good idea to run your Page through these tools every 3-4 months to see how scores have improved.

But if you’re serious about understanding how to use Facebook as a business tool for your organization, then get to know Insights. By educating yourself about how people interact with your content, what type of media they prefer, and who they are, you’ll make more intelligent decisions about how to use your Facebook Page.

Comments? Please share. Or like below.

  • Adrienne
    Great post John. Thanks for the info... I know you'll keep up the great work by continuing to provide such helpful information. Will look forward to it.
  • Great post, John - these are useful tools for sure. Btw, it's Vitrue, not Virtue. ;) I like their tool and used it once a bit ago... not sure I would keep going back to check my fan value. I agree with you that Facebook's own Insights are the best - along with your own stats/results that you track in a simple Excel spreadsheet. I watched your YouTube video too - nicely done. I'm sharing on my Fan Page now!! :)

    Keep up the great work!
    @marismith
  • Mari - Thanks for catching that. John
  • Easton, what is the name of your "team"? Do you have a link?
  • Great post John! I'm glad you're pointing out some of the tools available for analyzing metrics on Facebook. It seems so much focus is put on discussing Twitter metrics that Facebook is often neglected.
  • That's a keen observation, Lucas. The funny thing is that, for most sites,
    Facebook kills Twitter in terms of referral traffic.
  • Rmsorg
    Love all three tools, have used all three tools and I find that each one helps you too see were you are in your campaign and were you too tweak things... All excellent tools that if read properly can give you some great insights..
    Thanks for the post!
  • I think the best tool is the native Facebook Insights.
  • Easton Ellsworth
    I'm on a team that's designing a new tool that does this. We'll be up and running soon.
  • Easton - Let me know as soon as it's ready for beta. I'd love to take a
    look!
  • Virtue's tool is great but it is important to understand where the numbers come from and I don't believe they have done a great job of explaining that on their site.

    Their recent study concluded that each fan is worth approximately $3.60. What their tool is trying to show you is that this is only a "potential" value. You have to then create the actual impressions that allow you to cash in on that $3.60 in the form of a free media buy by posting a steady stream of engaging content.

    You also must factor in the value of notability when comparing your page against a competitor's. If you are a startup, you will not have the same level of unsolicited feedback and interaction by your fans that you might see other organizations experiencing, and thus will not even be able to compete with their "potential" value. There is an earned "cool" factor applied to even mundane content when shared by a larger brand and thus heightens its ability to be shared / commented on.

    Here's a link to the explanation of their study...
    http://vitrue.com/blog/2010/04/14/360-facebook-fan-valuation-is-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/
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