# Data Overview

Facebook Page Insights provides a range of metrics and dimensions across different report types. The data available depends on which report you select.

## Report types and available metrics

| Report Type                  | Dimensions                           | Key Metrics                                               | Date Range                    |
| ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------- |
| Page general overview        | Page name, date                      | Followers, impressions, reach, engagement, clicks         | Configurable (start/end date) |
| Page performance insights    | Post type, date                      | Reach, impressions, engagement, clicks, video plays       | Configurable (start/end date) |
| Page audience daily snapshot | Age, gender, location, country       | Follower count by demographic                             | Configurable (start/end date) |
| Post lifetime performance    | Post ID, post content, creation date | Impressions, reach, engagement, reactions, clicks, shares | Filtered by creation date     |
| Reels lifetime performance   | Reel ID, creation date               | Views, engagement, shares (limited by API)                | Filtered by creation date     |
| Video daily performance      | Video ID, day, creation date         | Views, watch time, engagement                             | Configurable (start/end date) |

## Common metrics

#### Engagement metrics

* **Engagement** — Total reactions, comments, and shares
* **Engagement reactions** — Broken down by reaction type (Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sorry, Angry)
* **Engaged users** — Count of unique users who engaged
* **Post clicks** — Total clicks on the post (excluding reactions)
* **Post shares** — Number of shares (via API where available)

#### Reach and impressions

* **Reach** — Unique users who saw your content
* **Impressions** — Total number of times your content was displayed
* **Paid reach** — Unique users reached via paid promotion
* **Organic reach** — Unique users reached through organic distribution

#### Video and reel metrics

* **Video views** — Total video plays
* **Video watch time** — Total minutes watched
* **Video average view duration** — Average watch time per video
* **Reel views** — Total reel plays
* **Reel engagement** — Reactions, comments, shares on reels

#### Audience metrics

* **Followers** — Total page followers
* **Fan adds** — New followers during the period
* **Fan removes** — Followers lost during the period
* **Age** — Follower age ranges (13-17, 18-24, 25-34, etc.)
* **Gender** — Breakdown by male, female, or unknown
* **Country** — Geographic location of followers
* **City** — City location (where available)

## Use cases by role

{% tabs %}
{% tab title="Social Media Managers" %}
Track page growth and post performance daily. Export post lifetime performance to identify your top-performing content types (carousel posts, reels, videos, links). Use audience daily snapshots to understand your follower demographics and tailor content accordingly. Combine post and page insights to see which content drives the most engagement relative to reach.
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="Marketing Teams" %}
Monitor campaign performance by exporting page performance insights with custom date ranges. Use Append transformations to combine data from multiple pages (e.g., brand + regional pages) for consolidated reporting. Send data to Looker Studio or BigQuery to build dashboards that track reach, engagement, and audience growth over time.
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="Analysts" %}
Pull detailed post-level metrics and aggregate by content type, creation date, or engagement tier. Use performance insights with daily splits to identify trends and seasonality. Combine Page Insights with Facebook Ads data (via separate data flows) to correlate organic engagement with paid promotion. Export to BigQuery for advanced SQL analysis.
{% endtab %}

{% tab title="AI and Content Strategy" %}
Export post lifetime performance data and send directly to Claude or ChatGPT to generate insights on engagement patterns and content recommendations. Use audience demographics to identify underserved segments. Extract post content along with metrics to analyze sentiment and messaging effectiveness.
{% endtab %}
{% endtabs %}

## Platform-specific notes

* **Reels limitations** — Facebook's API has limited reel metrics support; some engagement data (e.g., detailed reaction breakdowns) may not be available
* **Post creation dates** — Use the "Created after/before" filters to fetch only posts within a specific date range; this helps avoid timeouts on pages with high post volumes
* **Organic vs. paid reach** — Only available in performance insights reports; general overview includes combined reach
* **Video watch time** — Only available for video daily performance reports, not for reels
* **Rate limits** — Large date ranges and high post volumes may cause slow performance; narrow your date range if you encounter delays
* **Permission requirements** — You must have admin or analyst access to the page; business integrations must be authorized in Facebook settings