Without warning Facebook has started to email reports to page administrators. The reports provide high level data such as the amount of new fans, posts, comments, and visitors in the last week.

Sweet Spot Marketing got several emails this week from the pages we administer, and looking across the social network landscape, we can see that we are not alone.

A statement from FaceBook confirmed yesterday that the company started sending out the email updates last week as a test to help Page managers “stay up-to-date with their fans and improve the admin experience.”

The emails we received provided the same basic information that we could already gather by logging into FaceBook and clicking on the analytics insights link. The best part about the email is it saves time, which is much appreciated.

These emails have not been welcomed so warmly by all. Some FaceBook page administrators are criticizing this practice for not presenting more data beyond the basics. In general, many Facebook fan page owners are not happy with the amount of data Facebook shares via the email or on the insights page.

I think we all agree that it would be nice if Facebook had something similar to Google Analytics. We hope that this is a step in that direction. As Facebook is getting feedback about the email, they undoubtedly are seeing that the community still wants more.