Facebook has just confirmed my scoop from last week, announcing its business performance metrics tool Page Insights will start reporting data with a latency of 5-10 minutes, not two or more days. It will open new tactics for marketers such as amplifying a well-performing post’s reach with ads, or deleting one receiving negative feedback before it can trigger Unlikes or a PR crisis.
Insights Product Manager David Baser tells me real-time Insights will roll out globally over the next two weeks, and I think the way it ties to Sponsored Stories ads could boost Facebook’s revenues. Impressions, clicks, negative feedback instantly. Data wizards rejoice!
Baser explained to me that the old Insights product was:
“pretty slow for optimizing based on real-time feedback from your audience. You’d make post, then a few days later the data’s available, you download it, performs analysis in Excel, look at charts, come up with a theory about how the post did, share that data with the people running social strategy, then maybe for their next post 4-5 days [after the original post], heres something we can do next week.”
Frankly, Insights kind of sucked. Users were viewing posts, clicking on links, watching videos, and marking posts as spam seconds after a post was published. However, you couldn’t measure, amplify, or mute a post until it was largely too late.
But soon, hundreds of data points about Page posts will appear in Insights just minutes after a post hits the news feed. These include how many views, clicks, media consumptions, and spam marks. De-duplicated stats will appear in real-time too, such total reach and “people talking about this” which were previously delayed by several hours. Unfortunately, Page-level data aggregations will still be delayed a few days.
A Facebook spokesperson outlined the core advantages of real-time Insights for Page admins and marketers:
- They can promote the most engaging Page posts by pinning them, putting media behind them, and creating more of them, thereby increasing reach and impact
- They can quickly recognize posts that aren’t performing as well and update them or post new content
Baser beamed “Having those real-time breakouts will be a big win from people trying to get the most of out of their Page.” Plus, Page admins will be just a few clicks away from paying Facebook for ad distribution that could turn a strong post into a bonafide phenomenon.
Check out the rest of our Facebook Marketing Conference coverage:
Facebook Opens Timeline To All Biz Pages, Mandatory After 30 Days Of Curation
How To Use Facebook Timeline For Brand Pages: New Feature Details
Facebook Timeline For Pages Kills Crucial Marketing Feature: Default Landing Tabs
Liveblogging Facebook’s Marketing Keynote With Sheryl Sandberg
Facebook Reveals Mobile News Feed Ads and Massive Logout Page Ads