Facebook Apologizes for Their System’s Metrics Errors

Facebook admitted last Wednesday that there had been flaws in its metric calculations and apologized for it. The error in its metric calculations had led to its audience being overestimated at certain times. This was the second time in just a few months that the social media giant acknowledged the problems with assessing just how massive their content reach is given that they're considered as the leading online social network today. Facebook also extended its apologies to its advertisers last September for the metric errors that caused them to miscalculate the length of time that viewers use to watch their videos.

According to Billboard, Menlo Park said in their post that Facebook miscalculated four metrics. Which includes undercounting the number of people who watched the complete video and then over counting the time that the viewers spent on reading instant articles.

According to PhysOrg,  Facebook said that a software bug went live just in May 2016 that let the repeat visits to certain online pages of companies or brands be counted as if somebody new just visited the site and took their time to through each page. The bug did not de-duplicate the number of visits, but it did have an effect on the calculated average of visits during the seven- or 28-day periods to grow by 33 percent and even up to 55 percent.

The reach and influence that Facebook has nowadays are important to advertisers or even companies when it comes to their marketing campaigns. It is important for companies to be able to get an accurate data gathered from their system to have an idea of what their target market truly wants.

Facebook will be working with different independent companies such as comScore and Nielsen to get an insight into its metrics right after the uncovered the new problems that arose with the data that their system provides to their clients.