How to Gauge the Popularity of a Topic Online
Identify a canonical (preferably official) Facebook page associated with the topic where applicable., In the case of official pages, identify relevant metrics including: Number of page likes., Compare the metrics for the page with metrics for pages...
Step-by-Step Guide
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Step 1: Identify a canonical (preferably official) Facebook page associated with the topic where applicable.
Entities that correspond to living persons or active brands, companies or other kinds of organizations are likely to have official pages.
For an official page, you'll see a blue check mark (specifically, white check mark with a blue background) at the end of the name.Currently active large companies are highly likely to have official pages.
Among individuals, currently living celebrities in movies and music are highly likely to have official pages.
Examples among musicians include Taylor Swiftand Rihanna.Examples of companies include Googleand Coca-Cola.Some famous people do not have official pages, but they do have verified personal profiles.
This is just their usual Facebook account, that is capable of getting friends and followers but not likes (note that not everybody allows people to follow them).Examples include journalists such as Nicholas Kristofand Evelyn Ruslior technology sector leaders such as Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Marissa Mayer.Many topics are likely to have other forms of presence on Facebook: unofficial pages (usually created by fans), community pages (created automatically by Facebook based on the Wikipedia page), and discussion groups. -
Step 2: In the case of official pages
The current value, as well as the changes in the past two weeks, can be accessed by appending a "/likes" to the page URL, or equivalently, selecting the "Likes" option among the various options in the top panel to the right of the page photo.
The "Likes" option may be hidden under "More" if the page has additional panel options.Number of people "talking about this".
This can be accessed on the same page as the number of page likes.
Number of likes for (and other reactions to) recent posts on the page.
Nature of comments and quality of the comments.
Number of page likes from your friends.
Some samples of users who like the page.
You can look both at samples among your friends (about whom you might know more, and therefore get a richer sense of who is interested in the page) as well as in the general audience, including people who like specific posts. , For instance, to evaluate Katy Perry, it makes sense to compare with contemporaries such as Taylor Swift or Shakira, but a direct comparison with Barack Obama doesn't make sense.
You can even get Facebook to show you pages similar to a given page, by typing "Pages similar to Katy Perry" in the search bar. , The problem of fake likes arises when a lot of bots like a given page.
This can happen either due to the page buying likes (either intentionally buying bot likes, or doing so unintentionally while under the impression of buying legitimate likes).
It can also arise because bots, in order to appear like genuine users, may like pages of various celebrities or important topics or brands.
Therefore, this problem needs to be controlled for most if you think the page may have tried to buy likes, or if the topic is a major celebrity or brand.The problem of "shallow likes" is related to the problem of fake likes.
Shallow likes refer to cases where the users are real, legitimate humans using the site properly, but they are not genuinely interested in the topic.
They may have liked the topic as a result of being shown a sponsored post, or in error.
Whether shallow likes is a problem for your estimate of popularity depends on how you plan to use the estimate.
In many cases, fake likes and shallow likes may be hard to separate out.
However, if the goal is to determine legitimate, engaged likes, then it's not necessary to separate fake and shallow likes.
Some strategies to detect and address shallow likes include: looking at the ratio of "people talking about this" to page likes, looking at the fraction of likes that are from your friends, looking at the quality of some sample likers, and examining engagement on individual posts (all of these were mentioned in Step 2).
A further way of detecting fake likes is to look at the most popular week, city, and age group, and see if they make sense given the topic in question.
In particular, if the most popular city is not one where the topic is known to be popular, and in particular if it is a low-income country such as Pakistan or Bangladesh that is unlikely to be the most popular, then the likes are likely to be fake., For verified personal profiles, use the number of followers rather than the number of likes (this may not always be possible since some people do not turn on the option on Facebook to allow people to follow them).In addition, use likes, comments, and shares on recent posts the same way as you would for a page.
In some cases, the number of non-official pages (including fan pages) about the topic on Facebook can also give an idea of the topic's popularity.
Also, pages about subsidiary topics can also give an idea.
For instance, in the case of a singer, the existence and popularity of Facebook pages about the singer's songs can be a valuable indicator of the singer's popularity.
When metrics of this kind are available in addition to official page metrics, they can offer a useful comparison point to identify if fake or shallow likes are likely to have caused a problem. -
Step 3: identify relevant metrics including: Number of page likes.
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Step 4: Compare the metrics for the page with metrics for pages of competing entities
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Step 5: to put it in better context.
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Step 6: Adjust for fake likes and shallow likes.
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Step 7: Outside of
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Step 8: and in addition to
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Step 9: official pages
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Step 10: use the appropriate metrics that make sense.
Detailed Guide
Entities that correspond to living persons or active brands, companies or other kinds of organizations are likely to have official pages.
For an official page, you'll see a blue check mark (specifically, white check mark with a blue background) at the end of the name.Currently active large companies are highly likely to have official pages.
Among individuals, currently living celebrities in movies and music are highly likely to have official pages.
Examples among musicians include Taylor Swiftand Rihanna.Examples of companies include Googleand Coca-Cola.Some famous people do not have official pages, but they do have verified personal profiles.
This is just their usual Facebook account, that is capable of getting friends and followers but not likes (note that not everybody allows people to follow them).Examples include journalists such as Nicholas Kristofand Evelyn Ruslior technology sector leaders such as Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Marissa Mayer.Many topics are likely to have other forms of presence on Facebook: unofficial pages (usually created by fans), community pages (created automatically by Facebook based on the Wikipedia page), and discussion groups.
The current value, as well as the changes in the past two weeks, can be accessed by appending a "/likes" to the page URL, or equivalently, selecting the "Likes" option among the various options in the top panel to the right of the page photo.
The "Likes" option may be hidden under "More" if the page has additional panel options.Number of people "talking about this".
This can be accessed on the same page as the number of page likes.
Number of likes for (and other reactions to) recent posts on the page.
Nature of comments and quality of the comments.
Number of page likes from your friends.
Some samples of users who like the page.
You can look both at samples among your friends (about whom you might know more, and therefore get a richer sense of who is interested in the page) as well as in the general audience, including people who like specific posts. , For instance, to evaluate Katy Perry, it makes sense to compare with contemporaries such as Taylor Swift or Shakira, but a direct comparison with Barack Obama doesn't make sense.
You can even get Facebook to show you pages similar to a given page, by typing "Pages similar to Katy Perry" in the search bar. , The problem of fake likes arises when a lot of bots like a given page.
This can happen either due to the page buying likes (either intentionally buying bot likes, or doing so unintentionally while under the impression of buying legitimate likes).
It can also arise because bots, in order to appear like genuine users, may like pages of various celebrities or important topics or brands.
Therefore, this problem needs to be controlled for most if you think the page may have tried to buy likes, or if the topic is a major celebrity or brand.The problem of "shallow likes" is related to the problem of fake likes.
Shallow likes refer to cases where the users are real, legitimate humans using the site properly, but they are not genuinely interested in the topic.
They may have liked the topic as a result of being shown a sponsored post, or in error.
Whether shallow likes is a problem for your estimate of popularity depends on how you plan to use the estimate.
In many cases, fake likes and shallow likes may be hard to separate out.
However, if the goal is to determine legitimate, engaged likes, then it's not necessary to separate fake and shallow likes.
Some strategies to detect and address shallow likes include: looking at the ratio of "people talking about this" to page likes, looking at the fraction of likes that are from your friends, looking at the quality of some sample likers, and examining engagement on individual posts (all of these were mentioned in Step 2).
A further way of detecting fake likes is to look at the most popular week, city, and age group, and see if they make sense given the topic in question.
In particular, if the most popular city is not one where the topic is known to be popular, and in particular if it is a low-income country such as Pakistan or Bangladesh that is unlikely to be the most popular, then the likes are likely to be fake., For verified personal profiles, use the number of followers rather than the number of likes (this may not always be possible since some people do not turn on the option on Facebook to allow people to follow them).In addition, use likes, comments, and shares on recent posts the same way as you would for a page.
In some cases, the number of non-official pages (including fan pages) about the topic on Facebook can also give an idea of the topic's popularity.
Also, pages about subsidiary topics can also give an idea.
For instance, in the case of a singer, the existence and popularity of Facebook pages about the singer's songs can be a valuable indicator of the singer's popularity.
When metrics of this kind are available in addition to official page metrics, they can offer a useful comparison point to identify if fake or shallow likes are likely to have caused a problem.
About the Author
Robert Hall
Brings years of experience writing about home improvement and related subjects.
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