When you consider that users on Facebook watch more than 100 million hours of video a day, making more videos seems like a good way to command attention on the platform. But with organic reach on Facebook still declining, how can you tell whether your social media video strategy is working? That’s when you need the Facebook Video Insight dashboard. It helps you track essential Facebook video metrics so you can make more of the videos that users want to see.
Get to know Facebook Insights a little better and discover the 4 Facebook video metric tools you should be using to track your video and increase the reach, engagement, and ROI of your next Facebook video. Here’s how to make Facebook video metrics work for you:
How to see Facebook Video Metrics
Before you can track your Facebook video metrics, you need to find them on your Facebook Page. Here’s how to see metrics for all of your videos and for any individual video you want to track. Note that the process below shows you how to view organic video metrics. If you’re running video ads, you’ll need to view results on the ads page.
- 1. Sign in to your Facebook Page (not your personal profile)
- 2. From the menu list on the left, click Insights
- 3. From the menu list on the left, select Videos
- 4. You’ll see a screen that shows how all of your videos have performed recently. (note that you can select different time-frames from this screen)
- 5. If you want to view results for a specific video, scroll below the graph and select the video you’d like to review.
You’ll see a graph showing the lifetime performance of your post. To the right, you’ll find a preview of your video with the number of likes, shares, and comments visualized underneath it.
1. Facebook Video Metrics: Views
Total views is an important metric on any platform. Your message can only land if people are watching. That’s why the first metric we’re covering here is video views. At first glance, these numbers might look confusing, but that’s because Facebook has broken the data out into three useful metrics:
- 3-second video views
- 15-second video views
- 1-minute video views
So a “view” is anytime someone has your video playing on their screen for 3 seconds or more. Your goal should be to create video content that holds viewers’ attention from beginning to end. More on that when we talk about retention in the next section. But first, let’s talk about how to boost your view metrics.
How to troubleshoot video views on Facebook
There are several reasons why your video views might be lower than you hoped. Here are a few of them, and what you can do to address each one:
- Your video quality needs improvement. Videos that feel authentic perform well on Facebook. But you still need high production quality. Check that you’re meeting Facebook video quality standards and that your audio is clear.
- Your video doesn’t resonate with your audience. Even the highest quality video won’t hold viewers’ attention if they’re not interested in the topic. Check that you’re focused on viewer needs not just promoting your own product.
- You haven’t optimized for distribution on Facebook. On the Video Insights page, Facebook includes a distribution checklist that can help you optimize your video. Make sure you have a well-written description, tags, and captions. Checking these boxes makes Facebook more likely to show your video.
Unfortunately, a video that doesn’t perform well at first may contribute to its own poor performance. Basically, Facebook wants to show people content they’re going to be interested in. If your video isn’t holding viewers’ attention, Facebook will probably deemphasize it. Of course, if your video is less than one minute (our example video is only 58 seconds long), you’ll always see a zero here.
2. Facebook Video Metrics: Audience Retention
The video retention box shows you minute-by-minute retention, so you can see exactly when viewers start to drop off. You can choose to include only views over 15 seconds or all views. With all views included, you’ll probably see a big drop in the first few seconds. But if you only include views over 15 seconds, you can start to gather some insight about why your video is performing the way it is.
For example, in the chart above, we see a drop-off about 22 seconds in. That might mean viewers feel like the got the point of the video and didn’t need to watch more. It might mean they got bored, and moved on. Or it could mean that something that happened at the 22 second mark was confusing or off-putting in some way.
You don’t have to panic at every drop-off. After all, there’s plenty of content on Facebook to distract users. Not to mention, the distractions of their off-line lives. But you should review the sections where drop-offs happen. Look for patterns and fix any issues that you spot.
Facebook Video Metrics: Audience Engagement
Facebook video marketing is about a lot more than just views. Facebook calls video engagement the best way to measure whether your video resonated with your audience. They wrote: “If you can understand what types of videos cause viewers to take action, you can better match your content to your audience and reach new people.”
Understanding how viewers feel about your video is a lot easier since Facebook introduced reactions in 2016. Now, with the click of a button, viewers can tell you whether your video made them laugh or cry, whether it surprised them, made them angry, or moved them to care. That’s more information than a simple like can convey.
When considering Audience Engagement, you should also look at the Post Actions box. This box tells you how many total clicks your video had, including clicks-to-play. Remember that videos often auto-play in Facebook, so clicks-to-play show that your thumbnail or post description were interesting enough to convince users to click.
This box also shows you whether you got any negative feedback. One or two negative reports out of hundreds or thousands of views might not be worth worrying about. But if you have a lot of them, stop and think about what might be upsetting people. Some may have left hints in the comments for you.
3. Facebook Video Metrics: Audience Demographics
At the bottom of the Video Insights page, you’ll see a box marked audience. Here you can see a breakdown of your audience by region, country, and age & gender. These statistics can help you better target your videos by showing you if your content is reaching your target audience.
If you see groups represented on these tabs that you didn’t expect, that could mean one of two things. Either, your video needs to better target your ideal audience, or, there’s a whole new audience out there you didn’t even know existed. You might want to start making videos specifically for them.
Keep in mind that Facebook needs a certain volume of data before it can provide useful information on demographics. If this box is blank, you might need more views.
4. Comparing Facebook Post Types
We know that video works, but every audience is different. It’s possible that your audience prefers photo posts over video. Maybe they really like links. Why invest in a high-quality animated video if it doesn’t engage your target audience? Before you go down the rabbit hole of optimizing video metrics, it’s worth looking at your overall Page Insights to see what type of post performs the best.
Here’s how to find post type insights:
- 1. Sign in to your Facebook Page (not your personal profile)
- 2. From the menu list on the left, click Insights
- 3. Find and click Posts in the menu on the left
- 4. In the bar at the top click Post Types
This will show you a simple graphic with average reach and average engagement for each type of post.
If video isn’t performing as well as photos are, it might be time to rethink your video strategy. Or you might choose to double-down on the content that is already working.
Start With Quality Video
The Facebook Video Insights dashboard puts a lot of information at your fingertips. It’s up to you to draw conclusions from it. If you keep an eye on your metrics and look for opportunities to improve, you can find success with Facebook video.
For help creating a high-quality video that launches your message into orbit on Facebook contact the video experts at IdeaRocket.
