You’re Going To Lose Some Facebook Likes — Don’t Take It Personally

Ahhh… I still remember it like it was yesterday. I stood up from my homeroom chair, pulled my JNCOs (pronounced Jean-cos) up, zipped up my Miami Hurricanes Starter jacket, spit-polished my gold chain and walked over to Jennifer (the names have been changed to protect the innocent — mainly me from my wife) to give her the note. You know the note I’m talking about. THE note. The “do you like me” note.

By the time I had sat back down and corralled my JNCOs under my desk again, cheap hair mousse shimmering in the ambient fluorescent light of my asbestos-filled middle school, I already had my answer. “No.” Straight up. She could have at least checked “maybe.”

I vowed right then and there to never be unliked again. So, you can imagine my reaction when I read about Facebook’s recent initiative to remove likes from inactive accounts on Facebook Business Pages (can I segue? Or can I segue?).

Yep, at the beginning of March Facebook announced on their blog that they will begin the process of removing likes from inactive accounts on business pages. Page admins should expect to see a “small dip” in their number of likes stemming from this update. That seems like a pretty vague prediction to me…

Should You Be Worried?

In a word, no. Why? Because the likes you’ll lose will not be from active accounts- only memorialized and deactivated accounts.

Let’s take a look at exactly what these are right from the horse’s mouth (or, if you don’t like horse breath, we can just go to Facebook’s support pages, instead):

• A memorialized Facebook account is one that represents a person who has passed away. You know if you’re looking at a memorialized account because it will say “Remembering” in text next to the person’s name on their profile.
• A deactivated Facebook account is one that has been temporarily removed from of Facebook by the account holder.

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Over the next few weeks, page admins should expect to see the likes on their business page decrease as Facebook combs the archives and removes these likes from your page. How many will you lose? It depends on how many of the types of accounts described above like your page.

What Does It Mean?

Overall, I think this is a positive thing. Facebook’s efforts to remove the inactive accounts from your page should give you better, more accurate data. Remember, these people are no longer interacting with you and probably haven’t been for some time. They are not contributing anything other than a number on the left side of your Facebook page.

Take home lesson: You’re probably going to lose some likes on your business page, but that seems to be the only real negative of this update. Likes really don’t do much for you other than establish a baseline level of credibility. While this may be important cosmetically, you shouldn’t see any negatives in terms of reach or activity on your page and should be able to gain more accurate insight into your real audience.

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