Meta deprecated a number of Facebook metrics on March 14 and September 16, 2024. These changes affected some Hootsuite metrics and metric breakdowns. Read Meta's announcement.

Tip: This article served as a point-in-time notification. As new metrics are added, you'll find them in our metrics library (see Metrics in Analytics).

How the deprecation affects metrics in Hootsuite Analytics?

Deprecated metrics are not available in the metrics library. This means they cannot be added to Analytics reports. If you had added a metric to a report and that metric was deprecated, it will still be available in your report. However, the metric won't update with new data and will display with a yellow icon to indicate it's status.

You can no longer apply deprecated breakdowns to metric tiles. If you've already applied a breakdown to a tile in your report and that breakdown was deprecated, it will still be available in your report. However, the metric tile cannot be updated. If the tile is removed, it cannot be recreated.

Advanced Analytics

Deprecated metrics will still be available in Impact content, Content comparison, ROI analysis, Custom metrics, and Data export. However, the metrics won't update with new data. They can be used for historical purposes.

Metrics and breakdowns that changed

Facebook deprecations affected the following metrics. The following deprecated metrics were removed from Hootsuite Analytics.

• Page answers
• Page check-ins and Page check-ins (unique)
• Page clicks (unique)
• Page comments
• Page content clicks
• Page coupons
• Page engaged users
• Page likes
  
• Page logged-in views (unique)
• Page mobile check-ins (unique) metric
• Page mobile check-ins metric
• Page negative feedback, Page negative feedback (unique), and Page negative feedback rate
• Page positive feedback (unique)
• Page positive feedback (unique) metric
• Page referral traffic > Type
• Page RSVP
• Page shares
• Page stories
• Page views > Tabs
• Page views > Type
• Post clicks (unique)
• Post engaged fans
• Post engaged users
• Post negative feedback, Post negative feedback - hide all posts (+unique), Post negative feedback - hide posts (+unique), Post negative feedback - report as spam (+unique), Post negative feedback - unlike page (+unique)
• Post paid fan impressions
• Post paid fan impressions (unique)
• Post people talking about this
• Post stories

The following metrics were affected by the deprecations and their calculations and breakdowns changed:

• Page engagement - Because of the changes to Page engaged users and Page engagement rate, this metric calculation changed
• Page engagement rate - Calculation changed
• Page fans - Gender and age breakdowns removed
• Page fans online (by hour) - Calculation changed
• Page impressions - Breakdown for story type and origin removed
• Page new fans - Source breakdown removed
• Page organic impressions - Calculated by subtracting Page paid impressions from Page impressions
• Page organic reach - Calculated by subtracting Paid reach from Page reach. New Page paid reach and Page organic reach metrics were added
• Page reach - Breakdowns for gender, story type, age, city, and country removed. Reach demographics replaced with Page fan demographics
• Page views - Status breakdown removed
• Page post organic reach - Calculated by subtracting Page post paid reach from Page post reach
• Page post impressions - Calculated by subtracting Page post paid impressions from Page post impressions. A new Page post paid impressions metric was added

In an effort to reduce the number of spam messages in direct messages (DMs), X introduced a new setting where you can only receive DMs from X verified users that you follow. Messages from verified users who you don't follow will be sent to the message request inbox on X. Users who previously set their account to receive messages from everyone will be automatically migrated to the new ‘Allow Messages only from Verified Users’ setting. Further information on the change can be found on X's help website.

With this change, X DMs may not reach connected X accounts in Hootsuite Inbox (Inbox or Inbox 2.0), and you may see a decrease in your inbound direct messages. We encourage you to review your Privacy and Security settings on X, and assess if the changes are problematic to your Xengagement. If you want to revert the changes, use the following instructions:

1. Go to your settings on X.
2. From your X Settings, select Privacy and Safety, and then select Direct Messages.
3. Select Allow message requests from everyone.

The EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA) aims to create a safer digital space where users' fundamental rights are protected and to establish a level playing field for businesses. The DSA is targeted at online service providers - the obligations are wide ranging and differ according to how an organization is categorized under the Act.

Starting July 10, 2023, if your Facebook or Instagram ads target any European Union countries or its associated territories (including in situations where EU countries/territories are indirectly targeted by selecting “worldwide” as your target), you will be required to enter the person or organization benefiting from the ad ("beneficiary"). You'll also have to document who is the person or organization paying for the ad ("payer") if that person or organization is different from the "beneficiary." A list of the EU countries and associated territories is available in the Meta article: Beneficiary and payer requirements for ads targeting the European Union.

This information will be required for all new, duplicated, or edited ads targeting the European Union or its associated territories. Your ad will not be published on any Meta platforms if you do not enter the information. If you are running an existing campaign that does not include the required information, and it is scheduled to run past July 10, 2023, your ads will stop running on the Meta platform. This requirement applies to all ad creation surfaces, including the Marketing API.

We're saying goodbye to Impact - and hello to Hootsuite Advanced Analytics. Proving the business value of your social media campaigns and activity is about to get a lot easier. With Advanced Analytics, you won't have to switch between Hootsuite and the Impact app - you'll find all the data, analytics, and reporting you need right in Hootsuite.

Here’s what you can expect:

• Better experience - No more switching between apps. Manage all your ROI measurement and reporting, including adding and managing social accounts and team members, in a single place.
• Better metrics - Add multiple metrics to a single chart? Oh yeah. Create custom metrics across multiple social networks for a holistic view? You got it. See Page- and post-level metrics for all your Pinterest posts, including video metrics? Check.
• Better data - Connect your Google Analytics 4 account to Impact to analyze and report on your social and web performance in one view.

We are saying goodbye to the Hootsuite Free plan. If you're a Free plan customer, you'll need to upgrade to a Professional plan to continue using Hootsuite. We'll begin restricting Free accounts that haven't upgraded on March 31, 2023.

With the Free plan, you were limited to only being able to manage two social accounts and schedule up to five posts. If you choose to switch to the Professional plan, you can manage up to ten social accounts and schedule an unlimited number of posts! Take a look at our plan offerings.

How we can help you with this transition

You are important to us and we'd love for you to stay with us as we grow. Here are some of the options we can help you with:

Change your plan

Keep your social running smoothly (and do a LOT more) with one of our paid plans! Learn more about our plan offerings. To change your plan, do the following:

1. Go to Account, and then select Plan and billing.
2. On the Plan and features tab, expand Manage my subscription, and then select Upgrade my plan.

Permanently delete your Hootsuite account

If you leave us now, you’ll take away the biggest part of us. We have great plans for Hootsuite and would love for you to stay and grow with us. If you want to permanently delete your account, you can do so. Know that if you delete your account, you will lose access to Hootsuite, your scheduled content will be permanently deleted, and the email associated with that account cannot be used for a future Hootsuite account.

Deleting your account takes effect immediately and accounts are not recoverable.

In December 2022, we removed Assignments from all Hootsuite accounts. Assignments served our customers well throughout the years, but based on customer feedback, we decided that it was past its prime. Assignments is not available for Hootsuite accounts created after July 7, 2022.

You have an excellent alternative for delegating posts and messages and collaborating with colleagues. See Manage team settings and assignments.

On March 15, 2021, we retired two of our legacy extension products: Hootfeed and Hootlet. If you have Hootlet installed in your Chrome browser, we recommend removing it.

We’re saying goodbye to Hootfeed, but we know that many customers found value in Hootlet. So we will be building a better, more robust Hootlet experience in the future. For now, the Hootsuite app directory offers these partner integrations that can help you store and share web content:

• Pocket - Save content from anywhere on the web to your Pocket account. Then with the Pocket app for Hootsuite, share that saved content to your social accounts. This app is available to all Hootsuite plan types, and it’s included free with the Enterprise plan. Learn more about the Pocket app.

• Curate by Upcontent - Discover and curate the best content in your UpContent account. Then integrate your account as a Hootsuite content source to share relevant topics on your social channels. This app is available to all Hootsuite plan types. Learn more about the Curate by Upcontent app.

• RSS AutoPublisher - Auto-publish from RSS feeds to your X, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts. Automate up to 25 feeds and make your social accounts the new go-tos for the latest news. This app is available to all Hootsuite plan types, and it’s included free with the Enterprise plan. Learn more about the RSS AutoPublisher app.

As an alternate solution to Hootfeed, you could try the following for displaying live X streams at events:

• Hootsuite streams - Create search streams for monitoring certain keywords on your connected X profile. See Create an X/Twitter search or keyword stream.

• TINT Events - TINT Events allows brands to collect, personalize, display, and monitor social media content feeds on any screen from TV displays to stadium jumbotrons. TINT is a Hootsuite technology partner. Learn more at www.tintup.com/events or contact Hootsuite for a demo.

To help you streamline all of your paid content promotion activities, we've created a new Ads area in Hootsuite where you can manage all of your boosted posts in one place. From now on, you can go to the Advertise area to boost your high-performing Facebook and LinkedIn posts.

With this change, we're removing the Promote tab from Plan. You can still do everything in Ads that you're used to doing in Promote. You can find a post to boost (or for Facebook, set up an automated boost), pause or delete a scheduled boost for a post, and view metrics on how your boosted post is performing.

Simply select Ads on the Hootsuite navigation, select the social channel where you want to promote your post, and set up your Facebook Boost or LinkedIn Boost as before.

For detailed instructions on how to boost an organic post on Facebook and LinkedIn, see Boost a Facebook post or Boost a LinkedIn Page post.

Facebook Analytics will no longer be available after June 30, 2021. Read the Facebook announcement.

This change will not affect Hootsuite Analytics or Impact. You can continue to track and analyze the performance of your Facebook posts alongside your other social networks in both Hootsuite Analytics and Impact in Analytics.

LinkedIn posts that include videos now appear in your streams and in Inbox messages. In both Streams and Inbox, you can play attached videos, like video posts, and view and respond to comments.

In short, LinkedIn posts with videos now include all the same engagement functionality as other video posts in Hootsuite.

For more about using videos with LinkedIn, see Everything You Need to Know About LinkedIn Video.

You can now also analyze your LinkedIn video posts in Analytics. LinkedIn video metrics are available in both Reports and the Post performance view. To learn more, see Metrics in Analytics.

With the release of iOS 14, Apple announced a change to how apps collect data on devices using iOS 14. Apple’s AppTransparencyTracking framework requires all apps to ask iOS 14 users whether they agree to being tracked across apps and websites owned by other companies. If a user opts out, Apple will prevent certain data collection and sharing from the device.

This has significant implications for how the Facebook pixel tracks app and web conversion events, and big impacts to our Hootsuite Ads customers who advertise on mobile devices and across the web.

In response to this change, Facebook will process pixel conversion events from iOS devices using Aggregated Event Measurement. To continue measuring web events from iOS 14 devices, you’ll need to make several changes. There are also several new limitations to be aware of.

Who is affected?

Anyone who runs Facebook advertising campaigns for leads or sales will be affected by this change. Targeting, reporting, and optimization will be reduced as a large number of iOS users opt out of the required prompt.

If your Facebook advertising activities don’t focus on conversions, but rather on social brand awareness metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and video views, the impact of these changes will be minimal.

Actions to take now

If you plan to deliver ads for conversion events that occur on your business’s app or website, see Facebook’s help article How Apple’s iOS 14 Release May Affect Your Ads for the lists of actions to take and new limitations in advertising on Facebook.

Changes to Hootsuite Ads

As a result of the changes that Facebook will be making, here are the changes you will see in Hootsuite Ads:

• Attribution window settings: The options for all campaigns will be 7-day (default) or 1-day click attribution windows.
• Ad creative: You won’t be able to use deferred deep links in ads in an App install or App event campaign targeting iOS 14.
• Targeting:
• • Mobile app custom audiences and app connections will no longer be available as targeting options.
  • App install, app event, or value optimization ad sets will not be able to target iOS 14+ devices.
• Minimum duration: Campaigns with “Lowest cost with bid cap” or “Cost cap campaigns” bidding strategies must have a duration of at least 3 days.

We can help!

We’re here to help you understand the impacts to your ads and reporting, and to make the necessary changes to adapt.

All Hootsuite Ads customers have an allotment of free strategic review sessions per year. These are 1-hour, live discussions with a social ads expert. Schedule a session from your Hootsuite Ads dashboard on the Services tab.