Facebook has been in a bit of a stew lately b/c authors and other brands are starting to get really upset with the fact that they have to pay money to reach their full audience of folks who have liked their page. Yours truly is included in this pool of irritated business owners.
So I decided to run a little experiment with Facebook ads and see if what they told me happened to my links matched what bit.ly told me happened to my links. Here’s what I found:
Post #1
# seen: 22,000 ppl
# likes: 156
# clicks: 460
# actions: 332
# comments: 13
According to bit.ly: 213 have clicked on the link
Post #2:
Promoted link stats according to FB:
# Seen: 2800
# likes: 42
# Clicks: 87
# Actions: 35
# comments: 1
Same link stats according to bitly: 37 clicks
So there seems to be a little bit of a disconnect between what Facebook reports as clicks and what bit.ly reports as clicks and I’m not really certain as to which report is more reliable. I do think that Facebook has a vested interest in showing you high numbers of clicks and likes but if what they’re showing you isn’t panning out through actual clicks on promoted links, then we the consumers might be getting scammed.
The other thing I noticed is that there was no correlation between anything Facebook reported happened and the number reported by bit.ly. So I can’t say that the number of actions matches clicks, though that seems to be the closest corresponding number in some cases.
Your mileage may vary. I’m thinking though that any promo I do in the future on Facebook, I’ll be checking the stats!
Interesting experiment, Jessica, and perhaps worth repeating. Facebook keeps changing things under people's feet. Given that we don't pay for it, we don't have much power to stop them. But I really have come frustrated with Facebook. People "like" a page, hoping to stay in touch. And now they have to take additional steps to do that. It truly pisses me off.
Definitely frustrating Pamela, that's for sure. I'm not willing to give up on it just yet but I'm significantly more cautious with my ad $
Add me to the frustrated que. If I want to increase my reach at all, it's $10 a pop, and though the views exploded exponentially, the new number of likes may not be worth the moolah. My biggest frustration is that an unpromoted post is not seen by every person who has taken the time to "Like" my page.
Buzz that's the number one reason people are pissed. While FB does drive a tremendous amount of traffic to this site, not all of the ppl who like my page see my stuff. But unless an exodus starts, we might not see changes any time soon.
This is all frustratingly scary, because I'm almost at 5000 friends which means I'll have to add a page, something I never thought I'd have to do. With all the changes, I'm not sure it's going to be worth the hassle.
Terry
Terry, I have a page and a profile. With a page you can promote posts which can be really handy when you've got a new book out. You can't promote profile posts as it stands today.
I know that on occasion when I have clicked on a link to an FB post from twitter, I get sent to the log in screen and never make it to the actual post that way. Not sure if that makes a difference or not, but just an FYI.
hmm, I wonder if that counts or not? Interesting.