When most companies and communities begin using a social network, their number one goal is often to increase the number of fans, followers, connections, etc.  If 250 fans is good, then 500 fans must be better, right?  In fact, I consistently get requests to become a fan of an apartment community, as they try to get fans in any way they can, even though I really am not the best target fan for them.  The problem, however, is that having more fans can actually hurt your efforts in the long run, if they aren’t truly fans.

Let’s start with a basic idea to discuss the issue:  Imagine a community that has 250 fans, 50 of which are true fans of the community and would interact with the page given the chance.  Now imagine a community with 1,000 fans, 50 of which are true fans and would interact given the chance.  Traditional thinking would claim that the second community is in the better position, as they have more total fans that might see their message, plus they have the same number of active fans.  Unfortunately, traditional thinking in this case is wrong.

When you make a post on your fan page, Facebook has to determine how popular it might be and how many people it should show it to.  A common misconception is that your fans will automatically see any updates you make, simply because they are your fans.  Instead, Facebook also has to feel that your post is worth the space it is taking up in users’ newsfeeds, so your post has to essentially prove itself worthy of being shown to more of your fans.  To help determine whether your post is worth sharing, Facebook looks at the number of interactions it is receiving such as likes, comments, shares, etc.  If it is getting a lot of activity, then it will share your post to more fans.  If it is not getting activity, Facebook simply won’t share it to many of your fans. 

Here is where the problem comes into play.  In the example above, the fan page with the lower fan count actually had 20% of their fans be potentially “active”, while the larger page only had 5% that are active.  So hypothetically, if Facebook shared a post to 100 fans of each page, the first one would get 20 interactions while the second page would only get 5.  This is a simplistic approach, and more factors go into it, but on a basic level, this means that the larger page’s posts look less interesting, simply because they have fans who aren’t really fans, and therefore, are not interacting with the page.  And since Facebook believes that page’s posts are less interesting, it won’t share it with more of that page’s fans, as that would be considered a waste.  So in general, those extra fans who are not actually fans are giving Facebook cues that your page isn’t worth sharing.

The point of the story is that not only are additional fans who aren’t actually fans a waste, but they can actually be harmful.  So it is imperative to not acquire fans just for the sake of having more fans.  But instead, focus on having fans that actually care about your company or community, and maximize your content to engage and excite that group as much as you can.