Facebook warned brands this week that their “Like” numbers could soon be tumbling. Why? Because Facebook is are removing inactive and memorialized accounts from totals.
“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,” the blog post reads. “It’s important to remember, though, that these removed likes represent people who were already inactive on Facebook.”
Now, some brands may be alarmed at the pending dip in this oft-touted metric. But at the heat of it, this is a good thing. After all, a high number of inactive accounts can actually bring down a brand page’s engagement percentage, as those inactive likes are not liking / sharing / commenting on content anyway.
This is a nice step, and I think the next step to making likes more “meaningful” would be to continue the fight against Bot Facebook accounts that are the life blood of black hat operations that sell you 10K Likes for $300. Those digital snake oil salesmen are giving digital marketers a bad name, allowing shaky ones to cover up their bad mistakes and data with Paypal account.
I dream of a day where my children can trust every like, share, and comment on Facebook without worrying about being hoodwinked. But I guess I’ll have to settle for the removal of inactive likes for now.
~ Jaime Hamel, @StopHamelTime & Digital Strategist, The S3 Agency
