Week 6: Facebook Insights, Reach, and Engagement


A facebook post may have high reach, but low engagement, or vice versa.  The difference between the two is this: say you post a video to a facebook page.  The video's reach, simply put, is how many people who saw the video.   This differs from engagement, in that to qualify for engagement, a viewer must like, share, comment, or click on the video.  In order to effectively use facebook, or any online medium, it's important to know the difference.  Just seeing something doesn't mean a potential customer or viewer is going to remember or relate the product, service or content with his friends.  Having a growing reach is a good thing, but I think that truly effective content will have an effective, corresponding relationship with engagement.  Ideally, we want people to see our content and then to engage with it, to serve as an evangelist or sorts, and to help spread our ideas and products.  

In a perfect world, any posted content would be voraciously consumed by a hungry public of all ages, genders, races, sexual orientations, and beliefs, but this is simply not the case.  In fact, during the Trump campaign, Russian saboteurs identified specific demographics and regions in order to direct their menacing content to the audience who mattered most to them: impressionable voters in key voting districts.  Whether it's influencing an election, marketing a product, or developing online content, successful media knows its audience.  This is where Facebook insights come in.  Insights help a creator know his audience.  Insights snapshot reach and engagement, but also provide details regarding the people who make up our audience: their age, gender, location, and language.  By knowing more about our audience, a creator can tailor his content and, if he decides to pay to boost or amplify something, he can get the most bang for his buck, by paying to boost something to an audience whom he knows is worthwhile to engage.

Here's an article I found helpful in sorting out reach, engagement, and insights.


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