Facebook announced it is correcting a few more "issues" with its metrics in areas like audience estimation for ads, live video reaction counts as well as its Like and Share buttons.
While arguably not as significant as the issues uncovered earlier in 2016, this week's announcement further illustrates that Facebook is having problems with the systems it has in place to provide transparency for marketers and advertisers.
Facebook also announced a rather significant correction to how it reports Live Video metrics in Page Insights. Facebook has apparently been misallocating extra reactions per users (likes, hearts, etc.) to the "Reactions from Shares of Posts" section instead of where they belong on "Reactions on Post."
The final issue involves a discrepancy found between the counts for Like and Share buttons via Facebook's Graph API and the counts when you enter in a URL in the search bar in the Facebook mobile app.
The advertisers I've spoken with are somewhat incensed at the continual announcements related to misreporting of performance metrics. While Facebook should be applauded for continually monitoring how it can be more accurate and transparent, the damage for many may have already been done.
The one update or improvement Facebook is making relates to its ad creation tool. Advertisers will now be shown a more accurate estimate of the potential overall reach and the estimated daily reach when building an ad as it will represent not only Facebook, but Instagram and the Audience network as well.
