Why did Facebook kill the Like Button? Here’s what you need to know.
The Like button has been synonymous with Facebook for as long as the social media giant has existed. However, on 6 January 2021, Facebook announced that it would be DROPPING the Like button from its site in a major redesign.
As shocking as it is, things are not really what Facebook makes them out to be.
As the company explains, Like buttons will no longer be available on Facebook Pages belonging to public figures. Instead they will only display the number of followers a Page has, which Facebook says is a better measure of how many people actually receive updates from a Page.
Longtime users of Facebook would know that the company has always maintained two metrics by which you can judge the popularity of a Page—the number of likes, and the number of followers. We’ve grown used to the former, while completely ignoring the latter. But here’s the thing, users of Facebook have always had the option to like a Page, and then unfollow it so that they don’t receive any updates. Remember those Pages you asked your high school friends to like but they never seem to engage with? Yeah, they simply liked the Page and unfollowed it. So if you’re a Page admin, you really should have an eye on your follower numbers. A growing disparity between the number of likes and the number of followers likely means that more people are choosing not to see your Page, which means over time, your engagement rates will go down. With the like button now gone though, your sole focus will be on growing the number of followers your Page has.
Along with this change, we anticipate Facebook to amend a few ad types that advertisers can make use of to ‘buy’ likes. Depending on where you come from, this could be both a good thing and a bad thing. For instance, focusing on followers will now incentivize you to focus on cultivating a high quality audience that actively listens to what you have to say. However, if you’ve just opened a new Page and want to quickly rack up some numbers, you’re going to have a much harder time acquiring those new followers, since people are likely to think twice about following a Page now. This is because the lack of a like button now removes the option of being ‘nice’ i.e. like the Page and unfollow it at the same time.
That’s not all…
Another notable change is that Pages will now get their own News Feed. The Page itself can now participate in conversations as the public figure or the brand, follow trends and interact with its fans. This dedicated News Feed will also suggest other public figures, Pages, Groups and trending content for the Page or the public figure to interact with, as well.
Facebook is also introducing a new Q&A format that allows Pages to better interact with fans. Followers can now ask the Page questions about a topic and when the Page answers, those become a stack of questions that people can swipe through to learn more. We can already see social media-savvy businesses already putting this feature to good use, and creating super-engaging Q&A stacks to keep new followers engaged.
One of the more welcome changes is that admins will now be able to assign access permissions more granularly, to focus on giving people varying levels of access to perform specific tasks across Insights, Ads, Content, Community Activity and Messages.
When will I see these changes on my Page?
Facebook has been testing these changes on a small subset of its users, and we have a few friends who have reported seeing the News Feed for Pages, new Page access controls etc. In case you haven’t, don’t worry. Facebook has said that the updates will roll out in the “coming months.”