You may have heard that Facebook finally completed the roll-out of the new Facebook Insights to all Page admins. Missed in this change by many was the update to the export files.
Don’t know what these are? Too ugly and difficult to navigate? GET OVER IT! If you’re serious about Facebook marketing, you need to be familiar with these files.
This is where much of the important data is buried. Facebook shows you the surface level data that they think you need to know within the web Insights. But you’d be amazed what you’re missing in the exports.
I went through both the post and page level exports to sort out what has changed. Today’s post will focus on the file that I use most — the post level export.
The Tabs
The old export had seven tabs, including Key Metrics. The new export has five. So, what’s changed?
What’s Gone: Talking About This and Post Stories tabs
What’s New: Nothing
This change bothers me. If I want to measure the value of a post, these two tabs keep much of the good stuff.
Following are the columns that previously existed within both of those tabs, but are no longer available (the metrics in bold are what matter most):
- Description
- Post ID
- Permalink
- Post Message
- Type
- Countries
- Languages
- Posted
- comment
- like
- share
That’s right: You can no longer view how many comments, likes and shares each post received in one easy-to-understand view. I’m not happy about this!
Otherwise, the remaining tabs (other than Key Metrics) remained exactly the same. Here are the tabs that went unchanged:
- Lifetime Post Consumers
- Lifetime Post Consumptions
- Lifetime Negative Feedback (Unique Users)
- Lifetime Negative Feedback (Total Count)
The Stats
As mentioned above, Facebook cut out the Stories and Talking About This tabs. As a result, we lost key data related to comments, likes and shares.
But that’s not all. The Key Metrics tab previously went through column AC. It now stops at column W. That means we lost six more metrics!
Here’s a recap of what’s gone and new in the Key Metrics tab:
What’s Gone:
- Lifetime Post Viral ReachReach measures the number of Accounts Center accounts (formerly users) that saw your ads at least once. You can have one account reached with multiple impressions. More
- Lifetime Post Viral ImpressionsImpressions are the number of times your ads were displayed to your target audience. Impressions aren't counted if it is detected they came from bots. More
- Lifetime Talking About This (Post)
- Lifetime Post Stories
- Lifetime Post Stories by people who have liked your Page
- Lifetime People talking about your post by those who have liked your Page
What’s New: Nothing
Whoa. In addition to completely removing Stories and Talking About This, Facebook eliminated Viral Reach and Impressions.
Even worse, they messed with our Fan-only stats, removing those Stories and Talking About This stats associated with them.
The Verdict
First of all, this was hardly an overhaul. Whereas the new web Insights is barely recognizable compared to the old version, the new post level export has mostly gone unchanged.
Well, there’s nothing new. Unfortunately, Facebook felt the need to remove some pretty important stats.
Important, of course, only if you care about things like virality, stories created and how much your Fans are deeply engaged with your content. If you don’t care about those things, then there’s nothing to see here!
So what do you think about these changes? Let me know in the comments below!
