Finally!  A Way to Track Your Facebook Fan Page

If only there was a way to track Facebook Fan Pages with Google Analytics…

As Facebook Fan Pages gain momentum as a leading Social Media Marketing outlet, the need to effectively track this medium becomes all the more important.  Up until very recently, the only way to monitor your Fan Page was through the extremely limiting Facebook Insights.  Insights provides page administrators limited data on visitor demographics and fan interaction but is unable to report on visitor statistics, traffic sources, keyword data and some of the other extensive reporting that Google Analytics provides.  Thanks to some crafty out of the box thinking by London based web developers Webdigi, the code has been cracked and now everyone can track their Fan Pages using Google Analytics.  In this post, we will show you how to track your Fan Page with a step-by-step guide, including the necessary links to generate your personal Google Analytics tracking code that will be installed on your page.  We will also introduce you to the Social Media monitoring tool Unilyzer and show you how it can be used in correlation with Google Analytics to extract even more detailed and valuable information from Facebook and other Social Media outlets.  Let’s get started. 

Google Analytics for Facebook Fan Pages + Unilyzer = Tracking Bliss

Once you complete the installation of Google Analytics on your Facebook Fan Page, take your tracking to a new level using the Social Media Monitoring Dashboard from the Unilyzer (www.unilyzer.com).  The Unilyzer is a data-to-dashboard tool that uses Google Analytics to pull data from a wide range of Social Media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as well as social bookmark sites like Digg, Stumble and Delicious – using this data, the Unilyzer generates a personal dashboard with insightful charts and trending arrows which allows you to adjust your Social Media marketing efforts accordingly.  Before we tackle the process of tracking the Facebook Fan Page on the Unilyzer, let’s take a look at the following step-by-step guide you will need to follow to install Google Analytics on your Fan Page.

Google Analytics Installation Guide for Facebook Fan Pages

Installing Google Analytics on your Facebook Fan Page isn’t all that complicated, but you will want to closely follow the steps provided below as there are a few moving parts.  Luckily, the aforementioned web development company Webdigi (www.webdigi.co.uk/) has written up an extremely comprehensive “how-to” that will facilitate the process.  Let’s take a look at some excerpts from their article below.  If you’ve already installed Analytics to your page, scroll down to the “Unilyzer” section to learn how the Unilyzer, when used in correlation with Google Analytics, allows for an even more extensive tracking experience.

How to setup Google Analytics on your Facebook fan pages

“The workaround we use in our code is to include Google Analytics as an image instead of setting the standard Javascript. This method tracks every visitor to the custom facebook pages on Google Analytics. It required a combination of server side cookie management and an additional <img> tag to the bottom of the facebook fan page. Here are the steps to get Google Analytics working on your facebook fan page.

1) Setup Google Analytics account. If you already have one, create a new website profile. You can name it facebook.com or facebook.com/your_page_name. You will finally get your tracking code which looks like this UA-3123123-2
2) Create your custom img tag for each of your pages you like to track. EG: contact form, services, products etc. You can use our tool to create the Google Analytics link generator for Facebook pages.
3) Add the entire custom image html tag from step 2 to the bottom of each Facebook fan page that you need to track.

That is all there is to it! Google Analytics is not real-time, so you will need to give it some time. Approximately a day before you see the fruits of your “hard” work.”

For advanced users

“Use this method, if you don’t want to use our hosted link redirection as mentioned in the method above. You can download the entire source code which is just about three files to get this setup working on your own server (running PHP4.3 or above). The code is written in PHP and essentially creates the Google image tracking URL with the referrer, page information, ID, etc. The additional advantage of hosting this on your own server and domain is that visits from your website to your facebook fan page gets tracked, etc. You will also be able to customise further if you wish. Please do share any useful updates you apply to the tracking link code.

Facebook – Google Analytics Version 1.1 (Updated 21st Feb, 2010).  For advanced method – Download this code to use on your server.

If you don’t have a Facebook fan page yet, visit our tutorial for code and help on creating customised Facebook fan pages.

PS: We could not find any other source / blog that described how to get Google Analytics on Facebook fan pages! There is support for canvas pages and applications but nothing for Static FBML fan pages. Hope this helps and please leave your comments below.”

UPDATE:
1) A lot of users have asked how to track visits to the wall. Yes, this can be done. Please see the comments by iphp below.
2) Here is a screenshot to a staticFBML where the code should be placed

Source: http://www.webdigi.co.uk/

Google Analytics is now tracking your Facebook Fan Page – Wait, it gets better…

Facebook Fan Pages have really caught on as a great way for individuals and companies to create micro-communities of followers of their brand and/or cause.  Now that you have the capability of installing Google Analytics on your page, take the next step and use a tool that works with Google Analytics to even further enhance your tracking and monitoring efforts.  The Unilyzer (www.unilyzer.com) is just the tool you need if you are looking for even more in-depth reporting on your Fan Page and other Social Media channels.  We will first take a look at what the Unilyzer is and how it works before moving on to a more detailed explanation of how the Dashboard can be customized to report on specific information. 

The Unilyzer – a new comprehensive Social Media Monitoring and Tracking Dashboard 

A bevy of tools for tracking social media have been developed over the past few years, many of them quite effective in what they do.  With that said, they all have their shortcomings – too expensive, lack of reporting breadth, uninspired user interfaces, minimal tracking channel capabilities.  Some tracking tools are great but medium specific, reporting on only one Social Media outlet and requiring the user to manage multiple monitoring tools in order to get a truly clear vision of their Inbound Marketing efforts.  The new Social Media monitoring Dashboard Unilyzer, developed by Eman Bass, provides a great overall package combining a great user interface, numerous customizable data points, user-friendly functionality, and broad reporting on all of the major Social Media channels.  And now that Google Analytics can be easily installed to track Facebook Fan Pages, the Unilyzer is even more attractive as it offers the best combined analytical reporting of Fan Pages the market has to offer.  For more information about the Unilyzer’s tracking and reporting capabilities, visit www.unilyzer.com or click here to watch a short video that describes the Unilyzer’s basic functions.

All in all, the fact that we now have the capability to properly track Facebook Fan Pages is a very good thing and it will give Page administrators a level of insight that Facebook Insight does not.

About the Video: Did You Know 4.0
This is another official update to the original “Shift Happens” video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://mediaconvergence.economist.com and http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com.

Content by XPLANE, The Economist, Karl Fisch, Scott McLeod and Laura Bestler. Music by DoKashiteru, “Home Tonight.” Design and development by XPLANE, http://www.xplane.com. You can follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/xplane

Digg.com

It’s free, and Digg only takes a few minutes to open an account. It’s okay to digg your own content, as long as it’s good information and you balance it out by digging other people’s stuff. Spending about 15-30 minutes a day on Digg will help:

Stay Up-to-Date: Search Digg for content that pertains to your field. Read the articles that are getting the most diggs and take note of who’s writing them. The topics covered in these articles will help you stay abreast of the latest advancements, trends, and news in your field.

Build a Network: When you find relevant articles that compliment your topic, make sure to friend the people digging that content as well as dig their articles. Many times you will find they will return the favor and friend you back.

Build Incoming Links: Digg is one of the highest ranked web 2.0 sites around. Every time you get your content recommended on Digg, Google takes notice of the incoming link, plus takes into consideration the number of diggs. The more links to your site the more ‘doorways’ you have to your website.

Digging, making friends, and sharing your own content on a daily basis will have a tremendous effect on your website traffic and rank. It takes time and you must be consistent about it. If you can get your article bookmarked by a lot of diggers, your article will stay on the home Digg.com. An article that gets listed homepage or major sub-category can result in thousands of new visitors to your site.

http://www.digg.com

…

• Write a blog post with the rule of three. The post contains an introduction paragraph, three supporting examples or arguments, and a conclusion.

• Turn the blog post into tweets. Take your main point from the introduction paragraph and post it as a question to your twitter followers. Then take the first sentence of each of your supporting examples or arguments and drip tweet them throughout the day. Make sure to link to your original blog post in all your tweets.
• Turn your blog post in to wall posts. The conclusion of your blog post summarizes the overall point you’re making. Take this nugget of an idea and find a related video, resource, or book on the topic. Post the video or resource on your Facebook wall along with a link to your original blog post.
• Turn your blog post into a video or podcast. Take the blog post introduction and personalize with your own voice and style. Take the three supporting arguments and find an expert in the opposing or supporting side and interview them. With a podcast format you can call them and record their voice. With video you can be like a journalist and interview a local expert in the topic. Suggest several resources for the audience to get more information and wrap up with your final conclusion. Don’t forget to plug your website and encourage folks to subscribe to your channel.

• Digg and Ping your blog & videos. After you post to your blog and video site of choice, make sure to recommend yourself on the social bookmarking sites. This introduces your content to folks and generates incoming links. If you’re using a tool like WordPress to write your blogsite make sure you have it set to auto-ping blog indexing sites like Feed Burnner and Technorati.

As you can see, one blog post can be easily repurposed into four different social media channels. This not only saves you time, but keeps your message consistent. If one blog post can generate four different pieces of content you can exponentially increase the reach of your online marketing.

…

Step 1: Write & Post Your Article
The first step is to write your article and post it on your blog or website. Once the page itself is done, it’s ready to be “bookmarked”. This is the simple process of adding links back to your page.

Step 2: Open Accounts with Top Social Bookmarking Sites
There are about 50+ popular social bookmarking sites that you can join to begin bookmarking your own pages. You could take the time to submit to every single one, but I personally only submit to the following sites (best bang for the buck):

• Digg – http://www.digg.com/
• Delicious – http://www.delicious.com
• Stumble Upon – http://www.stumbleupon.com/
• Newsvine – http://www.newsvine.com/
• Diigo – http://www.diigo.com/
• Google Bookmarks – http://bookmarks.google.com
• Reddit – http://www.reddit.com/
• Mister Wong - http://www.mister-wong.com/

Step 3: Submit Your Article Links with Strategy

Link Title: This title should not only include the blog post title or article title, but should also include the main primary keyword phrase that you’re trying to use to get rankings. If you can start with this as your title, you’ll have a better chance of getting ranked for those keywords.

Link Description: Use this description as a strong call to action to get people to your website. You obviously don’t want to deceive people into visiting by promising them something that isn’t there, but make sure that in the description, you give a compelling reason for people to want to read more or find out more information.

Link URL: The url or web address of the page on your website or blog that has the article. Make sure that you’re using the web address of the exact blog post or article instead of just the main domain name of the website.

Link Tags: The tags are a vitally important part of the process because not only will your tag page get ranked for the “low hanging fruit” keywords, but it will also get ranked for the more competitive keyword phrases. Several of these bookmarking sites have a lot of authority in the eyes of the search engines, which means that their tag pages have the ability to rank well, especially when you use the less competitive keywords as your tags.

It’s worth it to take the time to submit your article pages with keyword tags to the social bookmarking sites.  By having numerous keywords targeted and informative article pages indexed and ranked in Google you will begin to dominate the search engines.

….

If your smart, and built your website using WordPress the answer is easy.  Install a social bookmarking plug in, and in minutes it adds the functionality of social bookmarking to all your pages and posts.  There are quite a few social bookmarking plug-ins for Wordpress, the one I recommend is ‘Sexy Bookmarks’.  I love how the plug-in adds the hand-written ‘Sharing is Sexy’ – very eye catching and engaging.  They also have a PG version ‘Sharing is Caring’ option for those that don’t like the word sexy.

See a sample of Sexy Bookmarks in action below and on all our blog posts.  And while you’re trying out the feature, don’t forget to bookmark us!

…