Why did my Facebook Page disappear?

Because of the ridiculous number of Facebook Pages I manage I get a lot of people who ask me about their own Facebook Pages. One of the things I get asked a lot, especially lately, is why their Page has suddenly lost its momentum and traffic has dwindled. It’s almost always the same answer. 

First, let’s talk about what Facebook is. 

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Facebook, like Google, is an advertising agency. Their basic job is to get you to visit their website and stay on it for as long as possible. Unlike any other advertising agency in the world, you openly tell them your age, sex, where you live and when you buy houses, cars, get engaged, go on vacations, eat at restaurants, go to events or almost any other important life event. It’s all shared on Facebook. And if you’re not telling them this, your friends are. 

Oh, yeah, they know who your friends are, too. When you go to Joe’s restaurant down the street and check Facebook while you’re waiting, your phone’s GPS is telling Facebook that you’re at Joe’s. 

By the definition of Facebook’s wanting you to spend time on their site, their computers are watching where you go and what you respond to. Now, before you get weird, basically they are mathematically keeping track of keywords and Pages and things like that. Honestly, Facebook doesn’t really care about you, individually. 

The truth of this is borne out by what shows up on your “memories.” Effectively, you’ll notice these are usually posts of yours that garnered a lot of responses. Facebook sees that this content generates responses which means people are interested in it so, by reposting it as your treasured memories, they are hoping to keep users engaged. 

So, the bottom line is, Facebook is most interested in showing you stuff that tends to keep its audience engaged and interested. Their business model is showing ads to users and the more time users spend on Facebook, the more advertising they can show them. It’s really that simple. 

So, if the things you post on your Business Page tend to get a lot of responses, you’ll find that your posts continue to show-up in people’s news feed. Again, Facebook wants to prioritize content that gets a response. 

However if your Facebook Page is nothing more than memes, posters and things that elicit zero response from the audience, you’re going to have to pay Facebook to get your posts to show-up on people’s news feeds. It’s really that simple. 

There are organizations that promise to deliver thousands of “Likes” and have ways of getting people to “Like” a Business Page. I guess it’s a badge of honor for some to have a huge following. But, actually, you’re better served by a following of people who just are engaged with your Page. 

It’s better to have 100 really active users than 1,000 Likes. Really. 

The bottom line is this. Know your audience and use your Facebook Business Page to interact with them. If you’re a dress shop, for example, instead of constantly firehosing messages about sales, how about working with a local homeless shelter and outfitting a person with a new business suit that will help get them a job? Then document the process on Facebook. 

The more your fans are truly fans and respond, “Like” and share your posts the more they’ll see of your posts and the less it will cost you to deliver your content to your audience. And if you’re finding people not engaging with your Facebook content at all, you might find that you’ve disappeared from their feeds altogether.

​Here are two others associated Blog Posts:

• Don't Let the fire hose extinguish your message

• Social Media: It's really a conversation