Here's Why Your Facebook Page Likes Suddenly Decreased

We have received a number of emails this week from funeral directors who noticed that their funeral home’s Facebook page likes decreased. Most funeral directors were freaking out because they thought they had done something wrong but have no fear, there is a perfectly good reason.

Facebook announced last week in a news release that they would be ‘removing memorialized and voluntarily deactivated accounts from Pages’ like counts‘. This was in an effort to make Facebook page data more accurate and to make Page likes more meaningful.

Why is Facebook doing this? Here is what they say:

There are two primary benefits to removing voluntarily deactivated and memorialized Facebook accounts from Pages’ like counts:
Business results: Removing inactive Facebook accounts from Page audience data gives businesses up-to-date insights on the people who actively follow their Page and makes it easier for businesses to find people like their followers through tools like lookalike audiences.

Consistency: We already filter out likes and comments generated by deactivated or memorialized accounts from individual Page posts, so this update keeps data consistent.

Look, this is really a benefit to page owners. The likes that were removed were inactive and didn’t really matter to the overall engagement of your page. In fact, they hurt you more than helped you. Here is how: if you are running a Facebook page for your funeral home then mostly likely you are also buying Facebook ads (if not, you should be). When running Facebook ads you should be looking at your audience data in Facebook Ad Manager to know exactly what interests your audience by the other connections they have on Facebook. This helps with creating relevant content and targeting your ads correctly. With a bunch of inactive accounts that liked your page the data you are getting from Facebook could be mucky.

How long can we expect to see decreasing Page likes?

Over the coming weeks, Page admins should expect to see a small dip in their number of Page likes as a result of this update. It’s important to remember, though, that these removed likes represent people who were already inactive on Facebook.
Going forward, any accounts that are voluntarily deactivated or memorialized will be removed from a Page’s like count. If a deactivated account is reactivated, the account will be re-added to a Page’s like count.
Everyone benefits from meaningful information on Facebook. It’s our hope that this update makes Pages even more valuable for businesses.

[H/T: Facebook Newsroom]

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Remember that many other factors play into social media success. The time of day you post, various targeting strategies, and Facebook advertising also play a part in the organic reach of a post and the engagement of that post. You may be concerned about the legalities of posting non-original content, the mechanics involved, or your ability to have time to make it all happen. If so, you can turn to the experts at DISRUPT Media. We are the only full-service social media agency specifically catering to the funeral profession.

Go to http://funeralsocial.com to find out more about the services we offer. Our clients who are a part of our FUNERAL Social Design Process are seeing an increase in post reach and engagement of over 300%.