Facebook Analytics

Running in Southern Utah can be pretty challenging to the uninitiated. There are strong winds, high elevation changes and scorching temperatures. As a newer runner to the sport, I realized that Southern Utah has a lot to offer and felt that it was important to share this information. This is why I decided to do this page. I am a member of the St. George Running Club and felt there was something extra to add as real world advice. I met with Steve and Kendra Hooper, the owners of the St. George Running Center to pitch my idea to them. They were on board, especially with the idea of testing current products that the store sells. So that is how the page began and continues today.

I began with a simple target market and persona's of people to attract. I focused on three types of people and an action plan to follow. This page is linked for additional insight to the projects goals.

The page has a simple logo that I created using typical Southern Utah colors. Similar to sandstone reds and oranges, black lava rock and sunshine gold. The banner shows a section of the St. George Marathon common to many search engines and promotional photos.

"About": This section gives a description about the purpose of the site. I focused on the aspect of the environment of Southern Utah and the popularity of the St. George Marathon.

Overview: The analytics for the last week. There were two posts combined that had a reach of over 200 people and 20 plus people engaging. This is a big improvement from last week. 

Total Page Likes: The last month average was 102 likes compared to the following month of 86. Looking back at the last few months, I added on average 20 likes per month.

Page and Tab Visits: This is important to note that the initial timeline can be the clincher to get viewers. For the last three months, over 90% of viewers clicked the "Timeline" tab and rarely did the "Info" tab get visited, on average of four clicks to the tab.

Your Fans: Total fan base and locations are displayed with a large majority coming from right here in Southern Utah. Fans are 75% women with most between the ages of 25-44. This confirms data that was reported about the increase of women Marathon runners. There was one like from Papua New Guinea, a large island north of Australia. This maybe a fake Facebook account that just likes public pages.  

Fan Base Reached: The reach went larger than I anticipated. When I did my practice ad, my reach was only to the western United States, where a large majority of runners were from. If I would have actually paid for it my reach would have been greater, as you can see from this link.  I have six different countries being reached now, the farthest being Bahrain and Japan. These views are probably associated with the Paupa New Guinea account or someone with a connection to our sister marathon in Ibigawa, Japan.   

Fan Base Engagement: I was happy with my engagement by users. I wasn't looking to get 10-20 likes per post, so my expectations were low. I knew there were going to be more likes, but the local residents who are connected with ties to the area were the most active. This could be because a few of the posts began right before, on opening day and after registration opened for the St. George Marathon, which most posts centered around.

Average Post Reach and Engagement: The "status" posts were the most successful with the "photos" being the less successful. The could be most "photo" posts were during the beginning of the campaign when likes were low. Now that likes have increased, a photo might be more productive. 

Total Post Reach and Engagement: The last two weeks has been where most of the reach has been seen. Prior posts were seen by less than 50 average people per day.

Individual Post with Reach and Engagement: The individual posts varied from "links", "status'"and "photo" which all had different results. The biggest thing I noticed was the differences between the kinds of posts. Like I mentioned earlier "status" had the largest involvement and likes, mainly because they were associated with a current race/event, I noticed this, but continued to post all kinds in hopes that the increased likes would offset the struggling posts. I will have to see if it makes a difference. There were 11 status posts, 9 photo and 7 links/shares and unfortunately two posts had no support. NONE, ZIP NADA. I guess that goes with the territory. I looked into then and haven't discovered a definite reason why.

Summary: This page has been a success to me considering this is the first time I have attempted one. I learned a lot about how people browse and when they browse. I am happy with the engagement because there are lots of groups, pages and causes that take up a lot of time in peoples busy schedules. I think that if I were to post on a daily or every other day basis instead of the 3-4 day average I would have more engagement and a farther reach. I can say personally this makes a difference in the groups I am in. I get too busy to keep up with all the groups I am in, so i only click on the ones that are showing up in my timeline.

As an additional note Kendra Hooper has agreed to be an administrator to the site. This means the page will continue forward with support from the St. George Running Center and the St. George Running Club.