Measuring Facebook Results: Guru Interview with Jay Baer

Thanks to Sr. Editor Janet Roberts for her artful editing of this interview.

What Exactly Can Marketers Measure Now on Facebook?

Larry Chase: What Facebook metrics should marketers pay attention to?

Jay Baer: People love to count fans because you don't have to run a report to find out the number. It's analysis without the analysis.

The Facebook Insights platform is getting steadily better. Now that Facebook has opened up Insights into its API, in the next six months, you're going to see an explosion of third-party applications that will allow you to do all kinds of data gymnastics.

LC: Would you explain Facebook Insights?

JB: Facebook Insights is Facebook's version of Google Analytics. If you have a fan page, you can go to the Facebook Insights page, and it will tell you how many fans you have, how old they are, where they live, the male/female ratio and so much more. Facebook knows so much more about us than Google does.

The best metrics to look at beyond just counting fans are things like daily story feedback, which is the metric that tracks each time you put up a status update on your fan page, how many people see it, click thumbs up on it or leave a comment. It measures engagement, not just collecting fans, as if you were collecting and tagging bald eagles.

There are a lot of data points like that in the Facebook Insights universe that allow smart people to understand whether they are engaging their fans or just harvesting them and putting them in a corral.

LC: What other "nums" can you look at?

JB: Count the number of "hides," which is what happens when people who get sick of your updates click the "X" that hides your updates from their news feeds. It's the Facebook equivalent of an unsubscribe.

Also, count your Facebook impressions, which in the Facebook world means how many people in your total number of fans actually saw your status updates.

Not everybody sees your updates on their walls because of EdgeRank, which is Facebook's algorithm for determining which updates actually show up in a user's news feed.

The impression number shows you that ratio, and you need to track it over time. If that ratio starts to drop, it means people are getting bored and tuning out. Their impression number is similar to the open rate in email.

The way Facebook operates and its purpose for most companies - to be top of mind for people who already like you - sounds like email marketing, but it's email marketing 2.0.

PPC on Facebook Vs. Google

LC: What's the difference between a PPC campaign on Facebook versus Google AdWords?

JB: The first difference is intent. People doing web search are in searching mode, in information or solution acquisition mode.

Your click-through is going to be higher on Google ads than on Facebook ads because your purpose for being on Facebook is not for search.

What makes Facebook amazing is its targeting. Facebook knows everything about us because we've told them.

I had a condo in Arizona that I wanted to rent. I targeted a Facebook ad to women because I find them to be more reliable renters. I targeted Arizona State University students because the condo is near the ASU campus; sophomores, juniors or seniors because I don't want someone in their first year away from home because they go crazy. I wanted students whose parents are in the market from the area because there's a little more responsibility and oversight.

Nine hundred people on Facebook fit that description. The condo was rented in 35 minutes. On Google, what's my targeting? Females.

Google has changed the world, but Facebook is the one to watch. It has so much more data (about its users) than Google.

As you know, whoever has the data eventually wins because marketing is becoming more about relevance and targeting, and you can't have targeting and relevance without the data.

Most importantly, we [the users] give them [the media properties] that data, and each of those data points is something Facebook can use to target its ads.

FB Store Versus F-Commerce

LC: What's the difference between a Facebook Store and Facebook Commerce?

JB: You can sell products on your Facebook page the same way you would on your website. I use ShopTab for that. They'll put up a store on your fan page the same way you would have an Amazon store or an eBay store.

Facebook Commerce is when you're using your fans like Groupon, offering deals only for people who are on your fan page, but you don't offer the actual transaction, per se. You're trying to get your Facebook fans to collectively participate in a purchase offer, which might or might not occur on your page.

The first is a storefront. The other is a group-buying opportunity for your fans.

Role of Ad Agencies in FB Marketing

LC: There are now Facebook-specific agencies to serve the Facebook niche. Is the Facebook ad agency a sustainable model?

JB: I am not a proponent of Facebook-only agencies at the "Let's build a Facebook page" or "Let's optimize a Facebook fan page" level. Social Media is not an entree. It's an ingredient, and Facebook even more so.

Facebook and Social Media need to be part of a larger marketing and communications infrastructure, which, in turn, needs to be part of a larger corporate business imperative.

LC: But the big generalist shops don't get this stuff.

JB: They also don't see the money in it. What can you charge? Ten grand? Conversely, I do believe it makes a lot of sense to have a dedicated Facebook ad agency to handle the Facebook Advertising side of it.

Facebook pages are a content play. Facebook advertising is an advertising play. They're just both on Facebook. The fan page management is more like customer service, which belongs within your company.

Is Facebook Only a B2C Channel?

LC: So far, it looks to me that B2C companies have been the most successful on Facebook. Do you have any good examples of B2B?

JB: HubSpot is amazing at Facebook. They have built a whole community around their platform and content creation. Blue Sky Factory, an email organization, has a robust Facebook presence, as does SAP. Larger B2B companies are starting to understand Facebook is a clean way to interact with people who have already bought their products.

You have to understand that Facebook is preaching to the choir. People are not going to randomly like your Facebook fan page unless they actually like you. People who interact with you are likely to have an affinity with you already. That's why Facebook is more about loyalty and retention.

LC: Are you saying that tech and online digital marketing companies "get it?"

JB: I haven't canvassed all the B2B Facebook pages, but many of them tilt toward the tech side because the customers of these tech companies embrace Facebook as a B2B environment, more so than customers of companies that sell ball bearings.

Fifty-one percent of all Americans 12 or older now have a Facebook account. So, the idea that B2B people aren't on Facebook is untrue.

About Jay Baer

Jay Baer publishes the blog "Convince & Convert" and is co-author of The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social.