Facebook Places Affect Fan Page Insights

With the data collected from the page administrators, the launch of Facebook Places indicates that it has affected the importance of Page updates in news feeds. There is a noticeable change in the amount of impressions per post and the daily new ‘likes’. The reason seems to be reduction in the weight of Facebook Pages in the news feed. The Launch of Facebook Places has affected the Fan Pages.

Looking into the top Facebook Pages we have noticed that with the launch of Facebook Places on August 18^th, Facebook page growth has come down to 50% on an average. This has already affected the Page administrators with their insights going red. The problem is also related to Facebook changing their algorithm. However, this has not helped any Page Administrators.This drop in impressions-per-post leads to less ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ by users – the actions that drive traffic and new ‘likes’ to Pages. Interestingly this dip was noticed to all the top high traffic Pages. Impression per post has drastically reduced to 40%.

We have noticed this change in the insights post the Facebook Places launch to all the Fan Pages we monitor. Facebook’s own official page was gaining an average of 116,000 likes per day from late July through mid August, but that rate has similarly fallen to an average gain of 46,000 ‘likes’ per day over the week since Places launched. If the change is permanent, Page admins may need to look for alternative methods of gaining new likes. As when Facebook reduced the weight of application stories, this could mean spending more on Page marketing.