You may have noticed recently that the Insights box on Facebook Pages was updated a couple days ago and this leads to a whole new Insights Dashboard. Well actually the new Facebook Insights was made live shortly after the f8 conference, but was just recently replaced as the default view for Page admins. You still have access to the old Insights though we’re not sure if that will be available indefinitely. We wanted to review some pros and cons of the new Insights with you.
Pros
-Pretty: Yes that’s right! The new visualizations are a data nerds dream come true. Even if you don’t dream in numbers, this certainly makes the information much easier to digest.
-Like sources: You can see where you are acquiring new connections from such as the Page, stream and search.
-Tab views: Chances are the Wall tab of your Page sees the most action, but now you can see what other tabs viewers are spending time on.
-External Referrers: Similar to Google Analytics, you can see what sites are bringing in viewers to your Page.
-Save Images: The days of grabbing screen shots and cropping graphs are behind us. Facebook now allows you to save an image of each graph right from the dashboard. You can also print the graph directly and view it full screen, which is great for those with poor vision and/or tiny netbooks like me. You can access these functions by hovering your cursor in the upper right hand corner of a graph.
-Impressions and Feedback: Pages can now see a list of their recent posts with impression figures and feedback percentages right from the dashboard.
Cons
-Percentages vs. Numbers: Rather than giving you the straight digits on geographic data of connections, Facebook now posts in by percentage, which means you may have to break out the calculator and 5th grade math skills to determine just how many of your fans reside in Kuala Lumpur.
-Data Export: For all the Excel spreadsheet based report lovers out there the new Insights make it more difficult for you to export the data. Your options are to use the old insights dashboard or add the “Insights Data Exporter Application.”
-Post Quality: Say goodbye to the mysterious metric that was “Post Quality.” Facebook explained the metric as “an algorithm that takes into account your number of posts, total fan interactions received, number of fans, as well as other factors.” All of these data points they mention are still presented to you, but now it’s up to you as a Page admin to gauge how compelling your content is.
As with any change on Facebook the new Insights Dashboard will take some getting used to, but it seems the pros outweigh the cons on this one. Have you found the new dashboard useful? Confusing? Interesting? Frustrating? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!
Post written by Biana Bakman aka @bianalog. To learn more from fbadz.com, connect with us on Facebook!