Expect to Lose Some "Likes" Soon

If you manage a Facebook Page and pay at least a little attention to how many “likes” you have, expect to see your numbers going down in the coming weeks.

Facebook announced that they’ll be doing an “audit” of the social media site, and removing “likes” that come from people whose accounts have been voluntarily deactivated or have been memorialized.  Here’s the reason, according to the Facebook blog post published yesterday:

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.

While no one wants to lose “likes” from their page, there’s actually solid logic behind this move.  Numbers that are boosted from people who are no longer active Facebook don’t help you in the least.  They’re merely vanity numbers.

Some have asked what percentage of a drop can be expected, but Facebook has not responded to those questions.