The price of moving fast is that you have more mistakes. So you may have noticed some weird stats in your Facebook analytics. For example, today is November 26, but we have a post that is on December 1st:

And then there’s one of our client pages that reports almost 300,000 new fans in one day:

Though we all wish we did get 300,000 new fans in one day, it turns out to be a bug.

Sometimes there are holes in the data. In this case, we show a zero for one metric for one day.  The impact of this is that it looks like we lost all our fans in one day and then gained them back:

The moral of the story– watch your stats carefully. Don’t trust data blindly. If you see one stat that is off, check the related stats to corroborate. For example, if we really did get 300,000 new fans in one day, you’d see a massive increase in impressions, likes, storytellers, and other metrics.

This is a common issue with pulling data Facebook API data, as well as what you see in the web-based insights. But a strong data analyst won’t be fooled. Two of the above images come from our tool, which pulls from the various Facebook APIs, while one is a screenshot from the web insights.

What have you seen in the data?

Dennis Yu

Dennis Yu is a former search engine engineer who has spent a billion dollars on Google and Facebook ads for Nike, Quiznos, Ashley Furniture, Red Bull, State Farm, and other organizations that have many locations. He has achieved 25% of his goal of creating a million digital marketing jobs because of his partnership with universities, professional organizations, and agencies. Companies like GoDaddy, Fiverr, onlinejobs.ph, 7 Figure Agency, and Vendasta partner with him to create training and certifications. Dennis created the Dollar a Day Strategy for local service businesses to enhance their existing local reputation and make the phone ring. He's coaching young adult agency owners who serve plumbers, AC technicians, landscapers, roofers, electricians in conjunction with leaders in these industries. Mr. Yu believes that there should be a standard in measuring local marketing efforts, much like doctors and plumbers need to be certified and licensed. His Content Factory training and dashboards are used by thousands of practitioners.

View all posts