Are Your Facebook Likes Decreasing?
Facebook recently announced a decrease in business page likes. I’ve seen quite a few posts over the last two days about this, and most are wildly inaccurate. They all go a little something like this: “Warning: Facebook is deleting inactive users from our page on March 12. If you don’t want to be removed from this page, comment on this post right now!”
So is it true?
No. (But the above page did get over 400 panicked users to like, share and comment on that inaccurate post!) Here’s the scoop on what exactly this new announcement means . . . and what it doesn’t mean.
Is Facebook deleting users from my page who are not engaged with my material?
No.
Is Facebook deleting those who no longer have an active Facebook account?
Yes.
The official statement on the Facebook for Business News Page says: “To make audience data even more meaningful for businesses, we’re updating the way Page likes are counted by removing memorialized and voluntarily deactivated accounts from Pages’ like counts.”
Simply put . . . if a user has passed away, his “like” will be deleted from your business page. If a user has voluntarily deactivated her Facebook account, her “like” will be deleted from your business page.
So over the next few weeks, page admins may see a small dip in the number of page likes. Keep in mind, though, that these removed likes represent people who are already inactive on Facebook.