Week 15 Part B: What we learn from Facebook Analytics

    This blog will be about analyzing and comparing data reports from Aztec Brewery's Facebook analytics from November 2020 and April 2021(and a bit of May). One of the most prominent factors that has greatly impacted many businesses, including Aztec, the past 2 years was the pandemic and the precautions that came with it. While more people were online for most of 2020, they were more inclined to find entertainment to enjoy at home rather than finding places to visit due to the closing of non-essential businesses that turned into restrictions later on.

    One of the first analytics that stood out to me was overall insights for the page within the two time frames. The 2020 report had a reach of 4,267, 387 engagements, and 12 likes while the 2021 report showed a reach of 6,323, 821engagements, and 15 likes. On the surface 2021 seems to have improved analytics over 2020 especially because engagements grew by 434. This is most likely due to the restrictions on businesses becoming more relaxed and more people choosing to go out due to the severity of the pandemic lowering; Insights to improvement of reach and engagement would be more apparent comparing November 2020 to November 202 because they would be exhibiting an audiences intrigue in the business during the beginning of the holiday season when more people are inclined to meet for social events. Comparing the overall data from April of 2021 to November 2020 does prove that the business is picking up a lot of traction for 2021 and this will most likely mean that the November 2021 data should grow from that of the 2020 data a fair amount.

    Looking at the page followers for Aztec for both years was interesting because of the unfollows to follows seemed to almost even out. It seems like for every follow there is one unfollow which means that the audience for each year's time period seemed pretty stable. 2020 had more followers at 12,264 while 2021 is holding 12,175 followers. there was no dramatic increase or decrease from each year with the difference being about .7% less for 2021; This to me means that the audience that is following Aztec is interested in and committed to the business and did not just follow due to viral marketing or paid followers (which was shown in the data that there were no paid followers). There was a spike of followers at the end of each month and I speculate that this was due to a promotion or more interest because of Thanksgiving/Christmas for 2020 and Cinco de Mayo in 2021. The "Where Your Page Follows Happened" data is interesting because for 2021 follows were not a result of searching for the business but had a fairly even distribution between on the page and uncategorized desktops. 2020 showed that most follows were from uncategorized desktop, some searches, and the least were on the page; this may have been because more people had down-time to search for new places that were open to the public or had to-go options.

    The comparison of total reach that was paid and organic for Aztec in 2020 and 2021 showed me how the business handled their advertising during the peak of the pandemic and when conditions were more lax. 2020 had no paid ads for November and the business relied on organic reach to their audience. Lowest reach was right around 50 but the highest peaked at a little over 600; overall, this year had very sporadic reach with reach spiking and dropping throughout the month of November. The lack of paid advertising shows me that the business did not find high return rates for paid advertisement earlier in the year or that they were less inclined to budget their finances towards paid advertisements on Facebook and allocated these resources towards other aspects of the business. April 2021 had both organic and paid reach for Aztecs platform on Facebook. Organic reach remained around 200 to 400 with the lowest reach dipping under 50 at the beginning and end of the month. Paid reach for Aztec greatly impacted the overall reach for the business, particularly in the middle of the month, by floating between 600 to 800. Comparing 2020 to 2021, paid reach greatly impacts how many of the audience and potentially interested Facebook users interact with Aztec's page; if a business can afford to budget paid ads for their page they definitely should because of how many more people your page can reach.

    Reactions in correlation to the reach also greatly improved from the 2020 data to the 2021 data. The organic reach from 2020 showed pretty sporadic spikes in reactions and resulted in very low comments, shares, and other reactions. This was most likely due to the posts from Aztec only appearing on the audiences timeline which could easily be ignored by scrolling past it. 2021's reactions showed improvement on reactions with reactions remaining constant and high and growth in comments, shares, and other reactions. Having the paid reach proved to be effective by not just having posts appear on timelines but also having them shown more and promoted through ads. These reactions for 2021 were also viewed by more than just followers of the Aztec page but by other users that would be interested on the platform which could help bring in more followers, promote brand awareness, and could result in more customers for the business.

    Looking at the analytics for a well established business was very intriguing and provided plenty of insight between two different time periods with differing political, economic, and social factors that impacted not only Aztec but many other businesses. This comparison showed the impact these factors have that can dilute the presence of a business when it should be at its peak in contrast to the same results during a slower period in a year.