Connect Facebook Pages to Looker Studio : How-to, templates and metrics

Social media are fantastic for keeping in touch with your users, upgrading your brand awareness, and communicating important information about you or your company. 

Using a Facebook Page is mandatory in social media worlds. It is because they still have the most visitor numbers on social media, with almost 3 billion monthly active users. And it's great to combine your Facebook Pages with Facebook Ads to maximize efficiency.

But to learn great insight, it is best to use specific reporting tools. For example:;

• How your post performs in time?
• How many fans or followers do you have day to day, how many do you lost?
• Compare your result to a previous period precisely.

The Facebook analytics tools are great to follow daily, but you'll miss some opportunities if you rely only on them.

You must use reporting tools like Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) or Power BI to create your dashboard and focus on the essential things. For example, if you need to compare your performance vs. year minus 1, you can do it. You need to verify something during the Q4 two years prior; you still can!

These tools let you play with your data; already-made interfaces do not limit you.

In this tutorial, we will see how to connect your Facebook Pages to Looker Studio and how to start using your KPIs in a report.

At the end of the article, you'll find a link to a ready-to-copy report template for Facebook Pages.

How to create a Facebook Pages data source in Looker Studio?

You first need to create a data source to use your KPIs in a report. It's the link between your report and your Facebook Pages data.

To create it, follow these steps: 

• Click on this link to access our Facebook Pages integration for Looker Studio. Then click Connect on Google Data Studio.

• Click Authorize. (If you used one of our services, this step is already done).

• Click Authorize again to link Looker Studio and your Google account. (If you used Looker Studio before, this step is already done)

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• Click Authorize one last time to link your Facebook Pages account.

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• Then select your account :

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Uncheck the Use report template for new report if you want to create a new report from scratch (you can modify it later on).

And finally, click Connect at the top right to create your Facebook Pages data source on Looker Studio.

Once created, you'll discover a new page. This is your data source. You can see the field list and some configurations at the top. If you want to learn more about this page, follow this link.

For now, remember that you have the list of all available metrics and dimensions and their descriptions here. You will need it while building reports.

Rename your data source (to find it later).

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and click Create Report at the top right.

How to create a Facebook Pages report in Looker Studio?

You just created a blank report for your Facebook Pages data source. If you want to learn more about this interface, follow this link.

Now let's populate this report.

Metrics and dimensions:

The first thing to do is to decide which metrics and dimensions to use.

I want to know my fans and followers better and monitor daily progress. 

And I want to check on my Post performance. How many times do I post in the month? How many viewers and engagement does that generate?

Here's the dimensions and metrics list.

• Page fans -> the total number of fans.
• Page fan add -> the new fan during the selected period
• Page fan remove -> the lost fan during the period
• Date -> to have the fan added and removed by day.
• Post Id -> To count the number of posts.
• Message -> the message of my posts to help identify it.
• Full Picture -> The image associated with my posts to help identify it.
• Post impression -> to know how many times my posts are displayed.
• Post impression unique (post reach) -> to know how many people see my posts.
• Post Likes -> to know which post generates the most likes.
• Post Comment -> the number of comments on my posts.
• Post Share -> the number of shares.
  

Report creation:

Scorecard for metrics of fans and number of posts:

We choose all the metrics and dimensions. Now let's place them in the report.

To do so : 

• Clicks on Add a Chart, then Scorecard.
• Place it in the report.
• Change the metric configuration to Page fans.

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Next, repeat the same action and use the Post Id, in the metrics. Looker Studio will automatically count the number of Post Id available and display this number. Rename it "Post #".

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Time series for the fans added and removed:

Then, we want to display the number of fans added and removed in a time series, breakdown by day :

• Click on Add a Chart, then Time series.
• Place it in the report.
• In dimension, use Date. In metrics, use Page fan add, and Page fan remove.
• Change the color for both series so it looks better.

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Table for the post overview:

We can debrief the posts in a table easily: 

• Click on Add a Chart, then Table.
• Place it in the report.
• In dimensions, use the Message and Full Picture. Use Post Impressions, Post Impressions Unique, Post Share, and Post Comments in metrics.

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• Set up the Full Picture to display the images.

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We now have a report that quickly shows your essential KPIs!

Controls fields

I want to add a date range control field to finalize this report. It will allow me and the report viewers to modify the real-time date range for the different KPIs. By default, the date range is on the last 28 days.

To add your date range control : 

• Click Add a control, then Date range selector, and place it in the report.

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You can set the default date range like this:

How to share your Facebook Pages report?

You can easily share your report with the Share button at the top right. Clicks on it and invite someone thanks to his email (only Gmail or Google account can be used).

You can define his privilege while inviting:

Viewers: The person will only access the view mode (available by clicking View at the top right).

Editor: The person can access the edition mode and modify the report just like you.

You can learn more about the different sharing methods by following this link.