How do you know what’s working on Facebook? Facebook provides Insights in the Meta Business Suite to help you create new content targeted to your audience and see how it performs.
If you previously used Audience Insights, then the Meta Business Suite Insights has replaced it. Page Insights also redirects to Meta Business Suite Insights.
Insights in the Meta Business Suite can give you information about your Facebook page reach, content, audience, page visits, page likes, and some demographic information about your audience, like age, gender, and location.
Read on to see what insights this tool can provide your business.
Insights Overview
On the Overview page of the Meta Business Suite Insights, you get a top-level overview for the period selected in the upper right corner. The default is the last 28 days and can be customized. Please note that all ‘dates are shown in Pacific Time’. You can change the period by clicking on the dropdown arrow next to the date.
The selected period will change the data displayed on the rest of the page.
Goals
You can set a goal for your Facebook page by clicking on the blue Get Started button. You can also choose other platforms if your Instagram account is connected.
Once you click on the button and select the platform, there will be at least 2 goals listed that you might like to achieve. These goals are measured over a 28-day period and can help encourage you to Increase reach or Grow followers. There are many other goals you might be shown7.
Once you select your goal, you’ll see options to customize your goal. Insights recommends a Starter goal, representing a 5% increase over how well your page did during the previous 28-day period. Intermediate goals strive for a 20%, while Advanced goals strive for 50%. You can also set the start date for your goal period and choose a custom target increase. For example, maybe you met your 5% goal last month, so this month you want to try for 10%. You can only have 1 goal at a time.
Clicking on View progress next to your goal will take you to the Audience Insights page in Meta Business Suite Insights.
Results
The Results overview section has a graph of your Facebook page reach over the period selected. It includes a percentage comparison versus the previous period so you can see how you’re trending at a glance.
You can click on See results report for more information. Click here to skip ahead to read more about the Results report Insights.
Content
By default, the Content overview section shows you the top 6 content pieces by Reach. Using the dropdown in the upper-right corner of the section allows you to sort based by Reach (default), Likes and reactions, Comments, Shares, Results, Cost per result, Link clicks, and Recent content.
The 6 content pieces will show an image, date and time posted (remember, in Pacific Time), the first few words of the content, and the value for the sorted by field that you’ve chosen. For example, if you’re sorted by Likes and reactions, it displays the Reactions count for each piece of content.
You can click on See content report for more information. Click here to skip ahead to read more about the Content report Insights.
Audience
In the Audience overview, you can see the Facebook Page likes and a breakdown of your audience by Age & gender in a bar chart.
You can click on See audience report for more information. Click here to skip ahead to read more about the Audience report Insights.
Results Insights
On the Results report, you can again see the Facebook page reach graphed over the period, with the percentage change since the previous period.
There are also graphs for both Facebook Page visits and Facebook Page new likes, each showing the percentage change from the previous period.
You can also export the data from this report as a png image of the Results page, csv dataset of the values by date, or pdf image of the Results page. While the images of the graphs can be useful, if you’re trying to re-sort the data by date later, you’ll want to save a copy of the csv dataset.
Audience Insights
If you have a goal set, it’ll appear at the top of the Audience report, with a graph of how you’re doing versus where you need to be to meet your goal, and the percentage complete.
Under the goals, in the main Audience section. There are two tabs, Current audience and Potential audience.
Current audience
On the Current audience tab, you can see the total number of Facebook Page likes, a graphical breakdown of users by Age & gender, and location information for your Current audience.
You can also export the Current audience data in png, csv, and pdf formats.
Potential audience
Potential audience, like many other Insight metrics, is related to running ads with Meta. Depending on the ad settings you’ve chosen, these numbers will change. They show you the Estimated audience size by estimating the number of people who meet the targeting and ad placement criteria you’re picked for your campaign. This doesn’t mean this number will see your ad, just that it will be shown to some people within a pool of users this size.
This tab will also allow you to filter the Potential audience by location, age, gender, interests, and language. You can filter the audience and click on the blue button to Create audience, to use it for your ad.
Next, you’ll see a bar chart breakdown of the Age & gender of the Potential audience. At the bottom, there are charts for density by location and Top pages these users like. You can use these metrics to help target your ads.
You can also export the Potential audience data in png, csv, and pdf formats.
Feedback Insights
Feedback Insights include the Average score that people have rated your business page. It also includes the number of responses you’ve received when you ask people for feedback. Each metric includes the percentage change from the previous period.
Under these numbers, you can see the responses you’ve received.
Each of these sections can be exported as png, csv, and pdf.
Benchmarking Insights
The Benchmarking page allows you to compare your business with similar businesses on Facebook, in terms of Page likes, Page likes change, and count of Published content for the period chosen. This can help you see how you’re doing compared with competitors.
At the bottom of the page, there is a note that ‘You can opt out if you don’t want other businesses to find and add your Facebook Page to their list, but you’ll lose access to this feature.’ Click on the opt out link to turn off this feature if you don’t want your competitors to use your business as a comparison.
Content Overview
The Content overview page shows you trends for posts and stories. The details are the same for each, just whether they are posts or stories.
This page shows you the Organic reach compared with the previous period. It also graphs median (average) post reach per media type and content format, to show you want content is doing the best. For example, our highest reaching media type is Videos, and our highest reaching content format is Live posts.
The next section is Organic engagement. This graphs the reactions, comments, and shares over the current period versus the previous period. It also gives the top median media type and content formats by number of reactions.
Finally, there are the Top-performing organic posts. These are posts that have been posted in the current period that include Highest reach on a post, Highest reactions on a post, and Highest comments on a post. While Highest might sound confusing, it just means these posts performed best over those 3 categories, largest reach, most reactions, and most comments.
Content Insights
The Content page shows Ads, Posts, and Stories that you’ve posted in the period selected at the time right. You can export the entire dataset by clicking on the Export button. It will download in a csv format so you can use the data in Excel.
You can filter which content is included using the dropdown next to Export and unchecking the content you wish to exclude.
This page (and the exported data file) displays the Recent content (Caption in the csv) with Post time, Content Type, Reach, Likes and reactions, Sticker taps, Replies, Link clicks, Comments, Shares, Results, Cost per result. Next to each post in the webpage, there is an option to Boost post.
By default, this content is sorted by the date and time it was posted (in Pacific time). On the webpage, you can sort by any of the fields, starting with Reach in the list. So, you can easily find which posts got the most Like and reactions, or which posts got the least, so you can find trends and spend your time on content that works.
By clicking on one of the content pieces listed on this page, it will bring up another page with the posted image, text, posted time, and current count interactions (reactions, comments, and shares). Then it shows Performance. There are 3 comparison bars showing the Reach, Reactions, comments and shares, and Results. For each, it gives the Total count, and a comparison of how this post did compared to “your 50 most recent Facebook posts and stories” and the percentage posts it out-did in each category.
Conclusion
I hope this Business Building Guide takes some of the mystery out of the Meta Business Suite Insights tool. This tool can help give you some insight into who your audience is, what they might like, what your competitors are up to, and how to use it to make better decisions about where you spend your time.
Have you already been using Meta Business Suite Insights? What do you think about it? Leave us a comment on the website!
If you need help with your Facebook Page, contact us about one-on-one help to grow your presence on Facebook.
Resources and Further Reading
- Insights. (n.d.). Meta. Retrieved September 6, 2022, from https://business.facebook.com/latest/insights/overview.
- About Insights in Meta Business Suite. (n.d.). Meta Business Help Center. Retrieved September 6, 2022, from https://www.facebook.com/business/help/700570830721044.
- Insights. (n.d.). Facebook. Retrieved September 6, 2022, from https://www.facebook.com/help/794890670645072.
- Transitioning from Audience Insights to Meta Business Suite Insights. (n.d.). Facebook. Retrieved September 6, 2022, from https://www.facebook.com/business/help/531965364451139.
- Where can I see Page Insights on Facebook? (n.d.). Facebook. Retrieved September 6, 2022, from https://www.facebook.com/help/268680253165747.
- Insights. (n.d.). Facebook. Retrieved September 6, 2022, from https://www.facebook.com/help/pages/insights.
- Facebook Business Goals. (n.d.). Meta. Retrieved September 7, 2022, from https://business.facebook.com/business/goals/.
