Written by ContentPowered.com
With all of the information online focused on getting likes, it’s easy to forget about retention. It’s often just assumed that once users end up on your page, they stay. As any admin of a reasonably sized page can tell you, however, it’s a constant struggle to maintain your numbers, let alone grow them. Users are always removing their likes for various reasons. It’s your job to minimize how many of those reasons apply. Here are a bunch of them, and what you can do to avoid them.
Before we begin, though, I want to clarify something. There’s a difference between unlikes and removed likes. Facebook will often go through and remove fake fans, as well as accounts that have been banned, memorialized or suspended. I’m not talking about likes removed by Facebook; I’m talking about people who are driven, for some reason or another, to remove their like.
Too Much Self-Promotion
This is red flag number one, and it’s a sign that you have a tenuous grasp on how Facebook works, at best. Facebook is not a place for you to come in and broadcast commercials. In fact, these days Facebook will even actively penalize businesses that spend too much of their time posting in self-promotional ways. Facebook wants you to build a community, hold discussions, and keep people informed. It doesn’t want you to become a commercial billboard with a constant flood of product announcements.
If you want to do that, you’ll need to use paid Facebook advertising.
Posting Too Often
This one, honestly, is a bit of a feat. Facebook only shows your posts to a small subset of your audience. You have to post a lot in order to pick up a user’s attention in a negative way. How many times do you post in a day? In an hour? If you’re driving people away because you post too much, you really need to figure out something else to do with your life.
Not Posting Enough
This one is the opposite problem, and it’s far, far easier to pull off. All you need to do is stop posting. Many users kind of ignore their likes and let them build up over time. I know it’s been a long time since I audited mine. Some users, though, pay a lot more attention. They’ll go over their likes and think “you know, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a post from X, I might as well remove them.”
Striking the right posting frequency balance is a difficult task, particularly when every audience is different. You’ll have to test and figure out how often is too often for your situation.
Having an Abrasive Persona
Users like when a business appears more human, but the last thing they want is to find out that human is a bit of a jerk. Being abrasive, being mean, or just being dismissive of customer complaints tends to put a bad taste in some users’ mouths, and they’re liable to unfollow you for that reason alone.
This happens when people look at their messaging and realize that, without self-promotional content, they have nothing. They turn to content curation and memes in order to try to build rapport with their audiences, but they end up doing nothing but making their page valueless.
At some point, you need to draw a line. People follow your business because they want something out of you, whether it’s deals, product announcements, industry news or just a unique perspective on the world. You need to identify what that is and give it to them. You don’t need to be promotional; you just need to be useful.
Posting Controversial Content or Opinions
Controversy in a good way can dramatically boost engagement and give your business a great reputation for being in touch. For example, during the Superbowl, you could post two images – one for each team – and hold a contest to see which gets more likes. Sports is contentious, but it’s contentious in a lighthearted way.
On the other hand, taking sides in political debates, debates over race or sexuality, and so forth, all tend to be much worse for your follower count. Just take a look at the businesses that end up going under because they refuse to serve homosexuals.
Ignoring Negative Comments and Spam
Leaving negative comments unaddressed on your page – or deleting them in a conspicuous way – shows your business is afraid of criticism or the truth. Leaving spam comments shows you don’t pay enough attention to your page to keep it clean. Both are easy to fix, and both tell the user that you don’t care and don’t have anything valuable to say. Would you want to buy a product from someone that leaves spam comments all over their business?
Begging for Engagement
One common technique to get more engagement is to simply ask for it, and this often works in moderation. The thing is, if you ask for likes on everything you post or share, you’re just coming across as desperate. Users figure you gotta earn your engagement, and begging isn’t going to help.
Acquiring the Wrong Kinds of Fans
Running ads, it’s easy to mix up targeting and get people liking your page who might not actually want to like your business. Once they figure out who you are and what your messages are for, they’ll remove their likes. Make sure you’re attracting the right people to avoid unlikes.
Never Providing Value
Users want something out of your page, and it’s your job to figure out what they want and how to give it to them. If a user looks at your page and thinks “you know, I don’t remember the last time I cared about anything they had to say,” you’re going to get an unlike.
If you steer clear of these – a complex process, I know – you can minimize the number of people who unlike your page. You won’t be able to stop them all, but you’ll cut the number down significantly.
