What are Net Likes?
This is a measure of the total likes you have gained over a certain period of time for your Facebook page. Many consider this one of the best features that you can use on Facebook insights. It is a great way of understanding how your page has grown while also acknowledging that some people have turned away from your content. This gives you a chance to understand why and whether it is happening at an expected level.
It is calculated by taking your page’s new likes and subtracting your unlikes. You want this number to remain a positive number and a negative number is an indication that something has to change.
It will show you how your page is doing compared to other time periods as well, with your home page automatically showing weekly changes— good or bad. If you are noticing a downwards trend, however, do not panic. Just take it as a moment to strategize.
Some people unliking your page over a certain period of time is to be expected. People change and alongside them so do interests. However, you should not be seeing mass waves of people unliking your page. If you are, then that may be a sign you need to pivot your content strategy. Look into your page insights and see whether they all occurred at the time of a certain post. Analyze what about that post could have deterred these members of your previous audience and try to not put out that kind of content again.
However, sometimes unlikes are nothing personal and are completely unrelated to your ad strategy. Take for example Facebook deleting old inactive accounts. This is an inevitable loss that does not necessarily mean that your content strategy is not what it should be.
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What Can I See On The Net Likes Insight?
Facebook automatically generates a graph for you under the net likes feature overlaying it with your unlikes, organic likes, and paid likes (organic likes are the likes that could not be attributed to an ad and happened naturally based on a user’s interest and paid likes are the likes that could be attributed to an ad campaign that you carried out). Facebook divides the different kinds of likes you receive so you could begin to plan out future ad campaigns and content strategy if necessary.
The net likes are displayed as a line graph over all of these other features which are displayed as color-coded portions.
