Facebook

No they can’t. I’m not sure what the person who searched for this (and ended up landing on this blog) was looking for – were they worried that the brand would get mad at them for unliking? :D Or were they paid to like (outright or via a promotion) and wanted to make sure they can now safely unlike?

The simple answer is, page admins can see how many unlikes they get per day, but they can’t see who are the “unlikers” and they probably don’t care. If you want to unlike a Facebook page, that’s certainly your prerogative. what IS of interest to the Facebook page admin is not WHO unlikes the page, but WHY they unlike it.

In my ideal world, people would be able to unlike a page (of course), but they would need to go through a screen first where they would be asked to enter a reason. They would have a few reasons to choose from, and also a place for entering their own unique reason.

Now, that’s not likely to happen anytime soon – making it difficult to unlike is not something Facebook will ever do. But imagine, if we marketers COULD get this information, how wonderful that would be. After all, we always want to know how people have found us – but it’s just as useful to us to know why they are leaving.

For now, we just have to make do with research that says, fairly consistently, that the number one reason people unlike a Facebook page is too many postings by that page.

So go ahead and unlike if you wish! The brand won’t get offended… they’d just love to know your reasons, if they could.

The title of this post is from an actual search phrase that landed on my blog. My first reaction was “serves you right!” Then I got curious and went to the Adwords Keyword Search Tool to search for “buying Facebook fans.” As it turns out, there are over 40,000 monthly searches for this key phrase. So whoever it was who had searched for that phrase, he/she is not alone.

I’m here to tell you that you should not buy Facebook fans (or Twitter followers, for that matter). I’m not even sure how these things work, and who are the fans that you’re buying through those services. What I suspect though is that those fans couldn’t care less about your brand and your product. They like your page because they were paid to do so, but as they start getting your posts to their News Feed, they “hide” you (best case scenario) or unlike you (worst case).

Look. I’m a social media consultant. I have clients. Those clients want more Facebook fans and more Twitter followers. The pressure is certainly there. But the way to get more fans is not to buy them. You might as well put that money in your garbage disposal, same thing.

The way to get more fans is to reach out to your *target audience* – the people that *should* be interested in your product or service, and offer them an incentive to like your page. Then, once they become fans, don’t post too often (once a day is actually too much in most cases. Most fans do not want to hear from a brand more often than once a week), and when you do post, make it interesting, and keep running Facebook-only promotions, so that fans can see that it’s worthwhile for them to stay fans.

But whatever you do, don’t buy Facebook fans.

Facebook is NOT Your Brand

“How do you feel about ditching our blog and moving all our social media to Facebook? I’m not even sure we need a website anymore – with 500 million users, doesn’t it make more sense to just be on Facebook?” An actual question from a client. My answer? Absolutely not! Facebook is not your brand, [...]

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Facebook Privacy Changes: A Response to Google Plus?

Facebook has announced that it will change its privacy controls, so that they appear right next to each posting. This would enable users to choose who sees individual status updates, photos and profile info — when they share or afterwards. “With most of your controls now up front, your privacy settings page has been simplified,” [...]

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How Come I’m Not Getting More Facebook Fans?

A recent conversation between a potential client and myself: Prospect: “How did you manage to grow your client’s Facebook page so nicely? Is it because you engage fans with your postings?” Me: “Oh gosh, no. My postings are great and engaging, but they work to engage existing fans and keep them on board (provided I [...]

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Getting Them To Like You Is Just The Beginning. How Do You Make Them Stay? That’s The Real Challenge!

The headline was staring at me reproachfully: “Study: 36% of fans disengaging with brands on Facebook!” It seemed to be asking, “So, are YOU able to hold on to YOUR fans?” Good question. I already stated here that starting a blog is easy, but keeping it fresh is difficult. The same is true for holding [...]

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What Makes You Like/Unlike a Brand on Facebook?

I’ve been reading a lot recently about what causes fans to like or to unlike a brand on Facebook. I must admit that as a consumer, I don’t really like brands on Facebook. I like many pages on Facebook, but I do that as part of my work – liking a page enables me to [...]

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Developing Your Facebook Page

One of my biggest pet peeves, as a social media consultant, is landing on a corporate Facebook fan page that has no Welcome tab. Landing on a Wall usually results in a general feeling of being lost – you’re not sure where exactly you should look, and if you simply look at the most recent [...]

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Facebook More Valuable Than Twitter?

“Not only does a Facebook user share almost five times more content than their Tweeting cousins, but sharing a link on Facebook is worth almost six times the value of the same link Tweeted.” Two reports have arrived at the same conclusion: a Facebook fan is more valuable than a Twitter follower. Knowing the nature [...]

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How To Get More Facebook Fans

facebook likeIt seems like everyone these days grapples with the question of how to get more fans for their Facebook Pages. While Facebook pages are more appropriate for a business than a Facebook Profile, they do have the fairly major limitation of not being able to reach out to people and initiate a relationship with them.

If you have a Facebook Profile, you can friend people, and if you have a Twitter account you can follow people. But with a Facebook Page, you don’t have any simple way of growing your number of fans.

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