Snaptastic Blog

Have you ever heard someone say, “If your nose is itchy, that means someone is talking about you?” If this old wives’ tale were true, then the administrators of highly engaged Facebook pages would be scratching all day long. The reason for this is the large amount of people talking about them, or in the terms of Facebook Insights, “People Talking About This.” You’ve seen the colorful graph looming above your Cover Photo in your Admin Panel, but have you been paying close attention to the numbers? The main ingredient to a high engagement ratio is the insight: People Talking About This or PTAT.

Don’t let these two terms overwhelm you just yet. By the time you fly through this post, you’ll become more visible within your Facebook community by increasing the number of people “talking about” your page.

Key Social Measurement Terms Defined

Before learning how to optimize your Facebook fan reach, you must first understand two important metrics that can tell you a lot about the performance of your page.

People Talking About This- The number of unique people (different fans) that have created a story about your page. A story can include any type of engagement such as a like, comment, click, share, check-in, mention or direct post. You can find this metric in the Overview section of your page’s Insights.

Engagement Ratio- The percentage of fans who interact with your page on a weekly basis. A higher engagement ratio means a more involved Facebook community. Your Engagement Ratio is not provided by Facebook, but can be calculated by the formula below.

(#of People Talking About This / # of Fans) x 100 = Engagement Ratio

Set Your Goals

First, calculate your engagement ratio. The Overview section in your Insights will always display PTAT from a seven-day time period, so rule of thumb is to measure your engagement ratio at the beginning of the week. For small business (less than 10k fans), anything above 5% is good. Our highest engagement ratio this month was 32% and we believe this is a highly successful number, but it’s up to you to determine what’s successful. Have you been happy with the recent amount of engagement on your page? If not, you may want to set a higher goal. If you’ve seen the best interaction on your page this week with an engagement ratio of 15%, then your goal may be 15-20%. Once you determine your weekly goals, be sure to keep track of your success and strive to reach that goal every week.

Reach Your Goals

So you have a lousy engagement ratio? The beauty of social media marketing is the ability to evolve in real time in order to engage your customers. Simply change the type of content you post from week to week in order to find the perfect formula that really gets your customers talking. Following our “almost famous” 70/20/10 Rule will get you started with the right combination of posts. You can also head to our Idea Bar and we’ll provide you with all the right material to post- you just add your spin on it.

Once you reach your goal, look over the kinds of posts you created that week as well as the time of day you posted. You’ll want to follow a similar posting schedule the next week in order to receive the same results. That doesn’t mean you should double post but mimic the same “type” of posts. We’ve seen great engagement with images, quotes, memes, employee pictures, inspirational posters and graphics, fun holidays, and questions. Try these types of posts yourself and the next time your nose itches, you’ll know why.