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?
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.