CrowdTangle Glossary

Definitions for common CrowdTangle metrics and filters

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Written by Tess
Updated over a week ago

Comments

Instances where a user comments on a post. This also includes comment replies. CrowdTangle does not provide the text of comments, only the number of comments, and we do not differentiate between whether the comment was in response to the post, or in response to a comment on the post.

Engagement

CrowdTangle tracks interactions, which is defined as reactions, comments and shares. Interactions are also known as engagement.

CrowdTangle does not track the following metrics:

  • Reach: The unique number of people who saw a post at least once. This means that CrowdTangle data will not enable you to say that X post reached Y number of people. Do not conflate Reach with the total number of followers of a page, or members of a group.

  • Impressions: The number of times a post was seen. CrowdTangle data will not show you the number of times a post was seen, unless the post is a Facebook video.

  • Clicks: The number of times people clicked on a link (or the post itself). CrowdTangle data will not show you the number of clicks on a post.

If one person sees a post three times and likes it, and comments on it, the number of interactions = 2, reach = 1, and impressions = 3.

Interactions Per Post

Interactions Per Post is calculated by taking the total number of interactions for a specific Page/account or list of Pages/accounts in a given time period and dividing that number by the total amount of posts in that same time period.

Interaction Rate for a post

Calculated by dividing the number of interactions (e.g. for Facebook: reactions, comments, shares) by the account size (followers/page likes) at the time of posting. Read more about how interaction rate is calculated here.

Interaction Rate for a Page/account

Calculated by adding up the number of interactions for all of the account’s posts in the specified time frame, divided by the number of posts, and then divided again by the average account size (followers/page likes) in question over the timeframe. You can find this metric on Intelligence and Leaderboards. Read more about how interaction rate is calculated here.

Interaction Rate for a List

Calculated by taking the number of all interactions on every post from every account in the list and then dividing by the number of posts. Then divide by the average size (follower count/ page likes) of the accounts in the list. You can find this metric for Lists in Intelligence. Read more about how interaction rate is calculated here.

Leaderboard

A leaderboard allows you to see how a single account or a group of Pages/accounts are performing over a set period of time. This feature is helpful for reporting purposes, and for competitive intelligence. Additionally, when you hover over an account or Page you can glean insight and trends from that account about what types of content were posted.

Overperforming

Overperforming is calculated by benchmarking how many interactions that account’s posts usually get after a certain period of time. Benchmarks are calculated from the last 100 posts of each post type (photo, video, link, etc.) from the account. You can read more about the calculation here.

Reactions

Instances where a user reacts to a post with a like, heart, sad, angry, haha, wow, or care emoji.

Share of Voice

The percentage of Total Interactions that belongs to a page or account in a List. The page is then ranked in email and Live Display Leaderboards based on its Share of Voice.

Shares

Instances when a user clicks “share” on a post.

Total Interactions

The total number of reactions, shares and comments on a Facebook post; the total number of likes and comments on an Instagram post. We don't consider video views to be interactions.

Underperforming

Underperforming is a relative score as to how posts for that page or account normally perform. If it’s red, it's performing below average. Underperforming is calculated the same way as Overperforming.

Weights

The customizable weights given in our algorithm to each interaction (for example, a reaction, share or comment). Choose which interaction is most important to you.

Video metrics

Video Views

The number of times a video was watched for an aggregate of at least 3 seconds, or for nearly its total length, whichever happened first (more info here). However, CrowdTangle updates video views captured every 4-6 minutes, so the numbers reflected in CrowdTangle and what you see on Facebook may occasionally be briefly out of sync.

Additionally, note that CrowdTangle tracks videos differently from Creator Studio -- Creator Studio shows metrics on videos viewed during a specified timeframe, no matter when the videos were uploaded, while CrowdTangle shows views on videos posted on a specific date, no matter when the videos were viewed.

Post Views

The number of views on a specific Facebook video post from a Page, not including shares or crossposts of that video.

Total video views

The total number of views that a video has gotten, including views from shares or crossposts.

Owned video views

Views from videos uploaded by the page you are looking at. This will include views both on their own post of the video, and from shares of it. You will find the breakdown of Owned Video Views from Page Posts and Owned Video Views from Shares when you download List or Intelligence CSVs.

Shared video views

Views on videos shared from another page, as opposed to videos created by the page itself. In CSV downloads, this will appear as a category under Video Views.

Video length

This Dashboard filter allows you to filter videos by their length/duration. For example, you can filter for videos that are more than three minutes long.

Total Video Time

Total video time uploaded. We will sum the duration of videos uploaded in a specified time frame to give you the Total Video Time. This number is not based on views.

Post types included in CrowdTangle

All Posts

All types of posts that CrowdTangle tracks, listed below.

Link

Posts with Links uploaded to the platform.

Status/Text Post

Text-only posts

Photo/Image

Photos uploaded to the platform

Albums

Instagram posts with two or more photos in a carousel

Videos/All Videos

All videos uploaded to the platform or posts that contains video URL from other platform (i.e. YouTube links)

All Facebook Videos

Videos uploaded to native Facebook video players, including Facebook Live.

Facebook Non-Live

Videos on-demand uploaded to the native Facebook video players, excluding Facebook Live.

Facebook Live

Facebook Live Videos. This excludes Facebook on-demand videos.

YouTube Videos

Posts with YouTube URLs

Video (Other)

Videos from Vimeo or other platforms shared on Facebook.

IGTV

Instagram video type for longer videos

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