Is There A Facebook Top Nine?

It's the last day of 2020, and the Interwebs are about to explode with Instagram's Top Nine — an app that finds your nine most popular Instagram posts of the year. But can we find our nine most liked Facebook posts of the year? Top Nine makes a collage with your most popular Insta pics, which was a friendly reminder that the only way I can get a lot of likes is to either take a picture with a celebrity or have my ass hanging out of my bikini bottoms. Like many, the whole thing made me curious how my posts did on Facebook, too. Unfortunately, though, there's not much you can do to find your most popular post here, aside from searching manually.

Determining your most popular posts on social media can reveal great insight into what your followers want to see — because whether you admit it or not, we all want to be popular online. While a number of apps determining your best posts have popped up over the years, most of them are now defunct.

But, there is some good news: If you have a Facebook Page (not just a personal profile), you can easily check your Insights to see how your posts are doing. There are a ton of other really cool findings, too! In addition to writing, I work in social media, and I always get a lot of juicy info out of these Insights. Here's how you can find them, and what to do with them.

Look at the top by your cover photo and you'll see a tab that says "Insights." Click that bad boy. BOOM. Instant social media insight goodness. This next page will render a whole mess of info. Look toward the menu on the left of the screen. You'll see options like Overview, Likes, and Reach. Click Posts. That'll take you to a screen like this. It's so beautiful.

There are about 5,203 things you can do with this information, so I'm just going to point out some of my favorites. The Reach column tells you how many people saw your post. This post did very well.

This post did not:

Now, go back to that original menu on the left and click "People." The page this brings up shows you how many of your fans are men versus women, and where your fans are located. This can really help in determining what kind of content to post, and when to post it. I have more male fans than female fans, which is weird considering most of the content I post is female-y. I can also see that a good chunk of my fans are in Las Vegas (where I live) and Detroit (where I'm from). Two different time zones! This means — you guessed it — you should split your posts up into each zone in order to cater to these two audiences.

BTW, I'd like to point out that I have 10 fans in India.

Next, click on "Likes" in that side menu. The first graph on this page shows your total page likes over time. You'll see that on Dec. 29, two sad people unliked my page. I don't know who you are, but I will find you.

The second table goes into even more detail, showing your unlikes, your organic likes (ones you got naturally), your paid likes (maybe you paid to boost your page), and your overall net likes. It helps put things into perspective and reminds you that some people find you annoying.

It doesn't end here. Not nearly. Facebook has Insights down to a science. If you're looking to get a handle on your Facebook page, dig in to your insights and poke around. There's only a small learning curve, and the information you'll gain is invaluable. Happy Facebooking!