Facebook has turned over its Pages Insights analytics tool wit ha new metric called “People Talking About.” This is a rating of how compelling the content is, which should push players to make their Pages more comment-worthy.

“People Talking About (that might not be the final name for the metric; at press time, Facebook wasn’t sure) will measure user-initiated activity related to a Page, including posting to a Page’s Wall, ‘liking’, commenting, sharing a Page post or content on the Page, answering a Question posed to fans, mentioning a Page, ‘liking’ or sharing a deal or checking in at your Place,” wrote Todd Wasserman. “The other metrics, which are designed for administrators of brand and media Pages, include ‘Likes,’ ‘Friends of Fans’ and ‘Weekly Total Reach.’ While ‘Likes’ is self-explanatory, Friends of Fans is the actual number of friends your fans have, and weekly total reach is designed to be an accurate assessment of how many total people have posted something about your Page, how many news organizations (within Facebook) have referenced it and how much viral distribution elements of your Page has gotten.”

There will be a series of activities that Facebook will be introducing soon under the Facebook Gestures banner. These four metrics will remain and the ‘Like’ will maintain its ranking as a top measurement, however.

“In addition to tracking the four metrics, Pages Insights will also offer a deeper dive into data around specific updates. Facebook will list your last 500 posts (the company began tracking them in July) and count the total number of engaged users, People Talking About it and virality. The latter measures the percentage of users who commented on the post,” added Wasserman. “Sentiment, however, will not be part of the calculation. Whether a user is lauding a comment or trashing it, it will count the same.”

Source: mashable.com {link no longer active}