What you should avoid so you don't lose Facebook fansby Camila Porto | Feb 18, 2022 | Facebook | 6
I love it when .com/teĂşdo fans on Facebook suggest topics and send questions. This shows that we are on the right path, helping people to clear up their doubts and counting on us to learn more. Today's post was born with a demand from a fan, Dudu Faleiro. Dudu sent me a message asking about something that we don't cover much around here and I don't see it in colleagues' blogs: how to avoid losing fans.
Taking care of customers, prospects and people engaged with our brand or product is something elementary and MUST be part of your marketing plan. It's no use just looking for more fans and customers if, after you already have your like, sale or interest, your company turns its back and goes in search of more customers, forgetting about the ones it already has.
This is basic, and when we talk about Facebook, the discourse is always about having more fans, engaging fans, but we don't always remember to take care of the fans that are already there. I believe that gaining fans is one of the easiest steps in the entire Facebook Marketing cycle. However, keeping your fans and getting them to interact and spread your page, content and product spontaneously are the hardest parts.
To retain you must have fans
Before we talk about how to retain fans, you need to have fans. So I suggest reading the post “10 Simple Ways to Get More Facebook Fans”. You will see that in very simple ways, you can give more visibility to your company's Facebook page.
Is it normal to lose fans?
Undoubtedly, it is extremely normal to lose fans, although it is very important that we work so that this does not happen, just as we do not want to lose customers. Before we talk about the main reasons people dislike a page, it's important to remember that Facebook is not in a bubble.
If your company is failing to provide services and leaves many customers unhappy, it is natural that they will stop being your fans on the social network. This example serves to alert you to the entire environment in which your brand is involved, and losing Facebook fans can happen because your logistics department is failing, for example.
A very popular survey by ExactTarget showed the top reasons why people dislike a page. According to the survey, the top five are:
1) The company posts too much;
2) Too many advertisements in News Feed and the user decided to “clean up”;
3) The content became repetitive over time;
4) Just liked to get a discount or participate in a promotion;
5) The brand doesn't offer many interesting offers.
You can check the other reasons in the image below:
Fonte: ExactTarget
However, I believe it is normal to lose fans. It is natural for people to change interests, like other content, filter the information they want to receive, and so on. However, always remember to work to retain your fans. That's what we're going to talk about next.
Losing fans is normal, but how much is normal?
One of Dudu's doubts was: how much is an acceptable loss of fans? Two a day? None? Here, my answer is simple: the less the better. The fewer fans your page loses, the more retention you get. However, sometimes it's nice to lose fans, especially those who don't buy anything from your company and complain for no reason, most of the time. As there is no number that we can call an acceptable number of “unlikes”, I would like to invite you to share in the comments how many fans, on average, you have lost in the last 28 days. So we can together find an average value that could help everyone to, who knows, compare their performance. Can I count on your collaboration?
How to know how much arguing your page has had?
To find out how many fans your page lost per day, go to your page's Facebook Insights (the page data) and go to the “Like” option (next to “Overview). Under “Sources of your Likes” you will see a graph with your new fans and the number of people who have disliked your page.
Tip: You can export the data to Excel and have information from a longer period of time to compare.
Field Research: What Your Page Shouldn't Do
Taking advantage of Dudu's suggestion, we asked our fans: “What makes you dislike a page?”. We had more than 70 votes and we are going to explore the five most voted points. Before that, I made a simple infographic with the response percentages:
repetitive content
In ExactTarget's survey, repetitive content ranked 3rd. In our survey, this was the most voted point. Therefore, one of the main ways to not lose your fans is to vary the content. Vary the format of posts with photos, videos, audio, links. Look for new ways to approach a topic that everyone is talking about. To help, I suggest reading the post “Content Strategies in Social Media: Where to Find Inspiration?”. For sure, you will have many ideas to always have differentiated content on your page.
Too many or too few posts
Here again we have something in common with ExcatTarget's research. Posting too much is a strong element that leads to loss of fans. Remember that we are in the Information Age and the attention economy has more and more value. So plan your content well and post really relevant content. It's better to post excellent content once a day than ten times something poor and repetitive.
Underposting can also be a problem, as people like your page because they want to hear what your business has to say. So a simple tip is to test some behaviors. Over the course of two weeks, post in different ways throughout the days. On some days post once, on other days post five, for example, and relate the volume of posts to the number of dislikes. That way, you can get an idea of ​​how much to post per day.
Post with propaganda
It is very common for people to confuse Facebook with a free tool to advertise and spam. It's okay to advertise your company's products or services on Facebook, in fact, I think it's very important. For this, I bet on the 80/20 rule, that is, 8 posts of quality content and 2 to promote your products or services. So people will have branding content and sales content in balance.
Content without content
I already talked about the content without content that invaded Facebook in the post “The setback and the void rewarded”. Posts of puppies, kittens and the famous posts: if you're happy LIKE, if you're sad SHARE, if you're going out today COMMENT. Stuff like that generates engagement, which is something we need because of EdgeRank, but it ruins a brand's reputation. So beware of that and read the post “Facebook Engine Optimization” to see how important it is to balance humor with reputation building on Facebook.
The page does not respond to fans
The 5th most voted point was the lack of interaction, something that really doesn't make any sense. The company goes on Facebook, wants to have more fans and engagement, but when people talk to the brand, they just don't respond. I know sometimes it's hard to deal with so many interactions, especially the negative ones, but I see many pages being praised and not even bothering to thank them. Does not make sense. So, talk to your fans, answer their questions, appreciate compliments and try to resolve complaints. After all, a social network is for talking and getting insights to improve your business.
Summing it Up
Taking care of the fans your page conquers on a daily basis is very important. The hard part, which was to gain his attention and trust to click Like, you've already done. However, it is even more difficult to keep them connected and engaged with your brand. So don't post too much, answer your fans, have quality and varied content and be careful not to lose your hand and advertise too much. With this, dedication and measurement of your actions, you will get to know your fans more and better and make sure they become the most profitable and special ones for your company.
Don't forget to share with us the average number of fans who have disliked your page in the last few weeks or months.
