Facebook’s latest purge aims to rid the platform of inactive accounts, and will definitely reduce page fans for virtually all Facebook fan pages. At first glance, this seems like another annoying move by the world’s biggest social media platform but if you are a digital marketer involved with your brand’s social assets, you should really look forward to this purge.

Deactivated and Memorialised

The only accounts that Facebook will purge from page fan counts (the number of “Likes” a page has) will be deactivated or memorialised accounts. Deactivated accounts are personal accounts that, for one reason or another, was taken down by its owner. Memorialised accounts are personal accounts of individuals who have already passed away. In both cases, losing fans on Facebook isn’t such a bad thing when those ‘fans’ won’t see your content anyway. They serve to bloat up fan page numbers, and this is not a statistic brand pages should focus on in this day and age.

Better Statistics and Insights

Given that inactive accounts will be removed from your brand page’s total fan count, this actually means engagement rates should improve slightly. Why? This is because the actively-engaging fans will be divided over a smaller total number of fans on said page, improving the ratio slightly. While admittedly a theoretical conclusion, it is one that is rooted in logic and basic math. In any case, a smaller but more active fan page obviously doesn’t hurt, and decreases the risk of wasted reach and impressions should sponsored content be served on accounts that no one checks anymore.

Conclusion

Losing fans on Facebook from this latest purge shouldn’t be a cause for panic for you and/or your brand’s social assets, and should be seen positively – it helps reduce fan page ‘bloat’ and gives you a more accurate measure of how large (and active) your community really is.