When it comes to Facebook, lots of local small businesses around Carlsbad are still in a holding pattern, circling the social media biosphere and searching for a place to land.
Given the multitude of available runways in the San Diego region, you’d think the options abound.
But, the challenge remains.
From the left-seat, there’s always something else in operating a local small business that takes immediate precedent over social media, local search optimization, and digital marketing for that matter. 
But things are changing; local Carlsbad small business owners are starting to realize the tangible benefits received by consistent and engaging social media communications.
But how do you know if your Facebook page is ‘working’ or not?
It’s working; if only to increase your digital footprint, and even if you only update your Wall once a week, it’s working.
But you need to work IT!
How Can We Be So Sure
‘Insights’ analytics are now becoming available as Facebook recently began offering page administrators previews into this emerging functionality.
Previous versions of these Facebook business page metrics communicated some information about the page, but not all.
At least not all the info that could be proactively used to help your chosen page administrator make your Carlsbad small business Facebook page a welcoming, relevant environment generating consistent and sustainable return on engagement.
Specifically, the info that was previously available highlighted such Facebook fan page metrics as, user interactions, user demographics, the number of ‘Likes’ your page generated, the number of average daily users, and the total page and post impressions — how many times your page & ‘Wall’ content was viewed.
But, with all of this information given to the page administrator with regard to your dental Facebook page, there was still no transmission of information that helped determine the effect of user activity on your bottom line.
There was no way for you to determine the value of the CONTENT communicated through your Carlsbad Small Business’s Facebook page.
Now, arming yourself with this info you are better able to understand what type of content best resonates with your local social audience.
(Get the skinny on ‘Insights’ from the Product Guide for Facebook Page Owners.)
Content is King
The content we publish to our ‘Wall’ and how our content gets shared with others is now quantifiable.
The outer reaches of the social media stratosphere are now available to us right here in Carlsbad, for further in-depth analysis and enhance page performance.
We’re now able to identify what types of content, methods of transmission, scope of messages, and even times of day, to best learn which communication methods provide the best return on engagement.
We’re able to gain more insight into the actual performance of our page, and a deeper understanding of what content stimulates engagement and encourages sharing.
What content is best for the average Carlsbad small business?
Everything, try it all. Mix it up.
Videos, blog posts, press releases, funny local anecdotes, most of all beneficial info related to your business, industry, products, services, and customers…engagement is great, but interaction is essential to success. 
We can now measure the reach of our Facebook content, enabling us to continually analyze and refine things to deliver the most socially stimulating content so essential to generate the return on engagement necessary to increase profits and decrease customer attrition!
This new Facebook Insights information should help us better understand the how, who, what, where, and why, behind determining what types of content our collective Carlsbad-centric audiences best appreciate…and SHARE.
This post was inspired by a great in-depth article from Practical E-Commerce. We can only hope to dumb it down so we can understand it enough to weakly paraphrase the main points.
