There is already a slew of articles regarding Facebook metrics which tell you why they are important and suggest which metrics you should track and why. However, there seems to be very little discussion regarding Facebook ratios.
In the world of finance (which is governed by numbers), ratios are king. There are hundreds of financial ratios that can be measured from just a few core metrics. Unlike metrics, ratios identify relationships, which can give you much deeper insights and far more accurate diagnostics than by merely looking at the performance of one metric.
Not sure where I am going? Consider Facebook’s engagement metric as an example. Let’s assume that in a given month, your engagement rate had increased by 10%, from 1,000 counts of engagement to 1,100. This is definitely good news! Sorting through your metrics further, you also discover that your reach has increased by an impressive 45% without any paid efforts, from 3,000 unique users reached to 4,350. Looking at these two metrics, you sit back and bask in your accomplishments.
But what did we miss? Some of you may have caught it. Although both engagement and reach has increased, engagement did not increase as quickly as your reach, resulting in a lower engagement ratio. In the previous month, your engagement ratio amounted to 33.33% (1,000 / 3,000) while in the current month, it has decreased to 25.29%. This represents a 24% decrease in engagement ratio.
Now that you have measured your ratios, your metrics don’t sound so good after all. As you can see, ratios can tell you much more than your metrics ever could. So with that, here are four Facebook ratios from which you can glean a lot from:
1. Knubb Ratio
Don’t let the name confuse you; this is simply the metric that compares the number of people talking with the number of total likes expressed in the following formula:
Knubb Ratio = (People Talking About This / Number of Total Page Likes)
Statistics Used:
People Talking About This (Page Level Export – Key Metrics – Column B)
Lifetime Total Likes (Page Level Export – Key Metrics – Column H)
What does this tell you?
As you know, “Talking about This” would include any activity that involves direct interaction with the page from unique users. Therefore, your Knubb Ratio tells you how well you are interacting with your audience and how effectively you are conjuring up interactions from unique users. Looking at a few Facebook pages, it appears that the average Knubb Ratio falls between .15 – .25.
2. Engagement Ratio
This simple metric calculates the ratio between how many unique users have seen your post and how many unique users have engaged with your post in any way. Essentially, this ratio is expressed by this formula:
Engagement Ratio = (Engaged Users / Total Reach)
Statistics Used:
Page Engaged Users ( Page Level Export – Key Metrics – Column L)
Total Reach (Page Level Export – Key Metrics – Column O)
What does this tell you?
This ratio tells you how well you are creating engagement on your page. A high ratio here means that you are effectively conjuring up engagement in the people that your post have reached. An engagement ratio between .15 – .25 is an acceptable range for an average Facebook page.
3. Consumption Rate
Through post-level insight, this ratio tells your how effective your post was in attracting clicks. It is important when you are trying to bring the audience to an external landing page.
Consumption Rate = (Lifetime Post Consumption / Lifetime Post Total Impression)
Statistics Used:
Lifetime Post Consumption (Post Level Export – Key Metrics – Column T)
Lifetime Post Total Impressions (Post Level Export – Key Metrics – Column L)
What does this tell you?
This ratio tells you how effectively your posts did in attracting users to click it. If this ratio drops, you might want to go back to the basics and experiment with various posting times or changing your call-to-action.
4. Story Creation Rate
This ratio shows the amount of times that your posts resulted in a “story” in user’s news feeds in relation to how many people have seen your post.
Story Creation Rate = (Lifetime Post Stories / Lifetime Post Impressions)
Statistics Used:
Lifetime Post Stories (Post Level Export – Key Metrics – Column AB)
Lifetime Post Impressions (Post Level Export – Key Metrics – Column W)
What does this tell you?
Post stories is the currency of your social media world. As these show up in the news feeds of even the non-fans, it can contribute to a large extent the virility of your posts.
What Ratios are Enough?
Once you have measured these ratios, the question then becomes “What is a good ratio to measure?” There is no straight answer to that question, as these ratios would differ greatly from industry to industry. A great way to figure out a number would be to benchmark yourselves in comparison to your competitors.
Keeping track of ratios is an important part of being a social media community manager. Knowing your ratios will help you gather much more robust insights about your page, and in turn, lead you to make better decision regarding your social strategy. Without these ratios, you will be missing many opportunities to properly assess and improve your social efforts.