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Today’s blog post comes from a question I’ve keep getting in my email box from Silhouette Cameo and Cricut Explore small business owners with Facebook Pages: “Why does my Facebook page have likes and follows?”
If you head to your Facebook business page and scroll down a bit, you’ll see a count for both likes and follows: 
So, what’s the difference?
- The like counter is the number of people that have liked your Facebook business page.
- When a new customer likes your page, the default setting is that they also follow your page.
- When someone follows your page, it means that your Facebook page posts will appear on their personal Facebook feed.
- Followers have the option to “Unfollow” your page, but still like your page. (This is similar to personal Facebook accounts. You can “Unfollow” someone you are friends with and no longer see their posts in your feed – but still stay friends with them.)
Now what? It’s time to play detective a bit. If your numbers are drastically different (way more likes than followers) – you might rethink your Facebook strategy. This means that people are liking your page, then unfollowing you. Could your page be boring? Is your page offensive? Whatever the cause, you can likely figure it out and fix it.
Remember, there are no (and I mean – NONE!) stupid questions. Feel free to shoot me an email or message if you have a question, likely someone else has the same question.
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Since 2015, Christine Schinagl has been helping crafters start and run craft businesses through her blog, Cutting for Business. As a Silhouette and Cricut crafter herself, she has a unique take on what works and what doesn’t work in the craft business world. She also enjoys teaching other crafters how to create digital SVG designs, available through the Design with Me series.
Scott Baxla
Friday 8th of December 2017
I'm new to facebook. I've dreaded crossing over into the social media scene, but it seems I need to get a profile, page, and group going to invite people to my dance events.
Issue: Seems like every time I have some time to try to figure out how to manage facebook, facebook shuts down my account as a security precaution and I'm locked out for days to weeks. Any page, group or event that I have out there is no longer accessible while my account is shut down(supposedly only logged out, but nobody can see the page or event). I cannot publicize dance events without access to my account...
Here's how it happens: 1) I finally get back onto my account after being shut down the last time. 2) I click on a few icons on my page or group. 3) This time I surfed google to try to learn how to get fans suggested for my page (don't know if this was a trigger -leaving facebook without logging out?) 4) Click back on Facebook and Facebook asks me to upload a photo to verify its me - Instant death! 5) I upload the photo, click next 6) a screen with the photo appears and a "continue" button on the bottom 7) I click continue, the screen blanks out for a second and returns to the screen w/ the photo and the "continue" button on the bottom 8) I repeat steps 6 and 7 about 30 times, until a screen shows up that says: We'll get in touch with you after we've reviewed your photo. You'll now be logged out of Facebook as a security precaution. 9) Wait for days to weeks for Facebook to allow me to log in again, (not until I get a notice in my email such as "someone has approved me as a friend" - I don't get any contact directly from Facebook letting me know my account is accessible again.
Obviously, when I see the "upload photo" request, I'm screwed. How do I "behave properly" to keep facebook from having to verify that its me and shutting down my account virtually every time I try to use it? (Its not disabled, so I cannot file an appeal to reactivate my account - several times while trying to open my account they "disabled" my account, and I filed an appeal - still weeks to get account reactivated).
Any insights?
Christine
Friday 8th of December 2017
Hello! This is something you'll have to take up with Facebook. Best of luck!
Jason Hahn
Wednesday 29th of November 2017
Are likes and follows mutually exclusive? i.e are these two different sets of people or is their some overlap between the two groups?
Christine
Friday 1st of December 2017
Hi Jason! There should be a large overlap.