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Have you noticed the total number of your Facebook fans dropping over the past month? You’re not the only one. Even Lady Gaga is feeling the pain. Her fans dropped by 104,125 in the past week. There’s no need to panic, however. It’s just Facebook cleaning house.

As we mentioned earlier this month, Facebook admitted in its quarterly report that 83 million profiles are most likely fake. The profiles they are deleting are a combination of duplicate, mis-classified (pets,
jokes, etc.), and spammer accounts.

In order to find out if you are dropping real accounts, do the following:

1. Login to your Facebook account. Click the down arrow in the upper right hand corner to Use Facebook as Your Business Name.
2. In the Admin Panel, click See All in the Insights section.
3. Click Export Data.
4. Keep the Data Type on Page level data and change the date range to the beginning of the year.
5. Click Download and save the spreadsheet with the rest of your reporting data. You have been tracking this, right?
6. In the Excel spreadsheet, do a sum total for each of the months of Daily New Likes.
7. Your Daily New Likes should be holding steady or increasing each month.

If you aren’t getting new likes, there are some simple things you can do.

1. Write Likable Content.
   Beautiful large images, cartoon jokes, and cute pictures and videos are always well-received. People enjoy fun and inspiring content, and it’s easy for them to click “Like”.
2. Ask Simple Questions.
   The easier the question is to answer, the better. Try to keep it from being Yes or No. For example, this question would likely be answered Yes or No: “It’s Friday night! Are you going out?” This is a question likely to get more engagement:
   “It’s Friday night! What’s your vote: Stay In or Go Out?”
3. Take a Poll.
   People love to give their opinion. Take this opportunity to gain exposure, as well as feedback. Use the poll functionality in Facebook to introduce a question with popular answers. Throw in a funny answer, as well, to tempt people who wouldn’t normally participate.
4. Ask People to Like your Posts.
   Believe it or not, one of the most effective ways to spread the word about your business on Facebook is to literally ask people to like your posts. You don’t want to use this tactic too often, but if you pick something fun and ask people to like it, they’re more likely to oblige.

    

   For example, if you are a personal trainer, post a motivational message with “Like this if you worked out today”. People love to talk about their workouts, and when then like your post, their friends will see it on their page.

5. Focus on Things that Matter.
   Most importantly, talk about things that matter to your customers, not just to your business. If you are a green business, mention environmentally-focused events and policies happening in the local area. As a pediatrician, talk about things moms want to hear, not just about keeping their kids healthy, but about ways to relieve their own stress and save them time.

Hopefully your daily new likes are steadily increasing. If you don’t have time to write engaging content, give us a call.