Is Facebook Viral Reach Down? A Problem Spotted in Insights

September 17, 2012 By Jon Loomer 75 Comments

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10/2 UPDATE: Are Facebook Page Numbers REALLY Down?

Something is wrong with the Reach of Facebook Page posts.

I’ve wanted to write this post for a couple of weeks now. But I had a heck of a time until now finding the smoking gun. I didn’t want to claim there was a problem when it was really just me.

But it’s not just me. I first brought it up in my closed Facebook Group (feel free to join) on August 31:

Has anyone else noticed a drop in reach the past few days? It’s always possible that I’m not that interesting lately since I was writing on the road. But just want to be sure that it’s not due to some global change that Facebook made.

Also wondering if it’s a statistical bug since I’ve seen more examples of reach not appearing at all at the bottom of posts. What are you seeing?

I’m a hawk with my Facebook Insights, and I noticed this almost immediately. I had pinpointed the start of the problem as being on August 28.

Many members within the Group reported the same thing. There have since been other posts from frustrated Page admins reporting no improvement. Something was quite clearly wrong.

And then I received confirmation from a “big dog” in Facebook marketing noting the same thing. And then on September 13, Mari Smith posted the following:

Have you noticed a dip in your fan page post reach lately?

Something wonky happening with the EdgeRank algorithms, maybe? Hm.

Mari Smith has nearly 80,000 Facebook Fans. If she sees it, I see it, multiple others are seeing it… It’s there, people. There’s a problem.

I’ve dug into my data multiple times since this discovery, but it wasn’t until today that I finally found the data to make an open and shut argument.

I found that some data was virtually unchanged, some data changed a little, but some data is off significantly compared to before August 28.

The Data Evaluated

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First of all, you may want to brush up on what some of the data means. Read this post: Facebook Insights Glossary of Terms.

I pulled the Post Level Facebook Insights for Jon Loomer Digital for the dates of June 10 through September 9. I wanted a three month period to provide as much data as possible.

I made the final date September 9 instead of something more recent with the understanding that older posts have had more time to receive more Reach and Engagement. But after a week, posts are — for the most part — dead.

I also removed any data related to Facebook Questions and focused entirely on Links, Photos and Status Updates. I’ve stopped using Questions in September, and I used them every day in August. I felt that this could easily throw off my results otherwise.

That left me with 205 Facebook posts (yes, I post a lot). I then found the median of all data from June 10 through August 27 and then from August 28 through September 9. I used medians to cut out posts that are well outside of the norm that would otherwise distort my results.

It’s important to remember that the number of Likes to my Page is constantly increasing. I had 3,947 total Likes on June 10 and 5,457 by September 9. I considered using ratios, but I’ve found that you really can’t extrapolate Reach and Engagement on a Per Fan basis. But certainly keep this in mind.

What Hasn’t Changed

There was not a difference worth noting in any of this data:

Metric	6/10 – 8/27	8/29 – 9/9
Total Reach	1,302.0	1,310.0
Organic Reach	1,249.5	1,257.0
Total Impressions	3,774.0	3,829.5
Organic Impressions	3,605.0	3,548.5
Engaged Users	39.0	42.0
Talking About This	6.0	6.5
Post Stories	6.0	7.0
Post Consumers	37.5	38.0
Post Consumptions	55.0	56.0
Engagement by Fans	29.5	29.0
Stories by Fans	5.0	4.5

I created separate charts to break up the big and little data to show just how close it is. In most cases, numbers went up a little from August 28 through September 9. In a couple, it went down very slightly.

The “Big Data”:

The “Little Data”:

Based on these metrics alone, there would appear to be no issue. These are many of the major metrics. I’m actually surprised I even noticed a problem.

One issue, though, is I would expect that the more recent data would be up more than it is based on the growth from the beginning of this test period. But still. No red flags here.

What Changed a Little

Then a few items started to concern me:

Metric	6/10 – 8/27	8/29 – 9/9
Post Impressions by Fans	3036.0	2852.0
Post Reach by Fans	909.5	805.5
Talking About This by Fans	5.0	4.0

Here’s a chart for the big data items to give you a visual:

Even though the difference in Talking About This among Fans is only “1″, that’s significant given the difference in Likes between the two sets of data.

Okay, so now I’m concerned. I actually am reaching fewer Fans than I was before. Not a significant number, but enough to be a problem.

What Changed a Lot

I’m concerned, but there’s no reason to write a blog post yet. But then there’s this…

Metric	6/10 – 8/27	8/29 – 9/9
Total Viral Reach	59.0	8.5
Total Viral Impressions	87.0	22.0

And a graph for the people…

Whoa.

My average post was previously seen by 59 friends of Fans through a story generated by Fans; that number is now down to 8.5. Similarly, the number of such impressions is down from 87 to 22.

That’s an incredible drop. Viral Reach is now 14% of what it once was while Viral Impressions are about 25%.

But how can this be? Almost all of the other data has remained nearly the same. Around the same number of Fans are creating stories and “Talking About” my content. But it would appear that far fewer of their friends are seeing this.

So let’s break this down a bit more… What is the correlation between the number of people creating stories (People Talking About This) and Viral Reach (the number of friends who see those stories)? How about between stories created and Viral Impressions?

Metric	6/10 – 8/27	8/29 – 9/9
Talking About This/Viral Reach	14.3%	87.5%
Stories/Viral Impressions	9.3%	34.2%

And the graph…

These are not ratios that you want going up. Let’s talk about what each one means…

Previously, each 14 people who created a story about my content would result in reaching 100 of their friends. That makes sense, right? But now, it takes nearly 88 stories to reach 100 of their friends.

Previously, nine stories generated by Fans resulted in 100 impressions for their friends; now it took 34 stories to generate those 100 impressions.

What it Means

This doesn’t make much sense. The number of people your post reaches through Fan activity is now close to a 1:1 ratio. So while your Fan may have 500 friends, only one of them is seeing when they Like, Comment or Share your content. How can that be??

This can mean one of two things:

Something is preventing friends from seeing stories generated by Fans; or
The data is wrong.

Let’s assume that the first one is the issue. All along, we’ve been freaking out about Fans seeing our content. You know, EdgeRank is limiting it to only 16% and all. But it would appear that the new problem isn’t reaching our Fans (though that may be down slightly), but our Fans being able to reach their friends with our content.

Does that mean that EdgeRank is preventing this? Possibly. Or it could be that more data is flowing through Tickers, so they’re seeing less. Or it could mean that they are online less often. It could mean a few things, but it doesn’t necessarily mean Facebook is preventing it.

And it’s possible that the data is simply wrong. If that’s the case, all of this data would have to be wrong, not just the Viral data. It just doesn’t fit together otherwise.

What About You?

I’m still trying to piece it all together, but it will help to get as much data as I possibly can. I’m just one person with an audience of about 5,000 people. It doesn’t mean anything by itself. The sample size is simply too small.

But I know others are seeing it, too.

How about you? Are your Viral Reach and Viral Impressions noticeably down? Let me know in the comments below!

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About Jon Loomer

Jon Loomer is a digital marketing consultant with a unique perspective on social media. He was introduced to Facebook in 2007 while with the NBA (back before Pages) and has been using Facebook for business ever since. Stay in touch by liking his Facebook Page (Jon Loomer Digital).

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Steve

Haven’t had time to go through all the data here (as good as it looks), but have you also checked the hide stories and hide all stories tabs in the Insights Reports? Maybe fans are hiding your stories from the newsfeed so their friends don’t get to see it. Just a thought. Thanks.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  I’ve checked that, Steve. Not only is there no change there, but it doesn’t explain the problem. I’m reaching my Fans at about the same rate. The problem is that when my Fans engage with my content, that engagement isn’t reaching their friends.
  - Adam Barański
    
    Hi, did you find a solution? Because I have the same problem now…?
    - http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
      
      No solution, Adam. I checked my numbers again today, and Viral Reach remains awful while everything else is going up. That’s not the case for everyone, but at least for me this seems like a bug in reporting since the numbers don’t add up.
Lisa

Although I am not one to totally break out the number stats as you have…I have notice a significant drop in my “talking about” numbers. I thought maybe I was just boring people…good to know that my personality may not be the cause.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  I’m with you, Lisa. I thought the same thing in the beginning. It’s what kept me from writing this post for two weeks. It was always possible it was just that I suddenly bored people. But it’s quite clear we’re not alone.
Steve Orne

I’ve experienced a similar drop. It doesn’t explain the sudden late August change but I’ve wondered how the use of tablet’s impacts these stat’s ??? Currently, I believe the “Share” feature isn’t available in the iPhone or IPad Facebook App. I don’t think the “Friend” activity feed is visible either.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  Possibly, Steve. Now, my data isn’t going to be the same as everyone’s, but what I’m finding is that my Fan engagement (Sharing, Likes, Comments) haven’t changed much. The problem is that that activity is not reaching the friends of these people. I don’t think that would be impacted by tablet use, but I could be wrong.
  
  Overall, there are several potential explanations for factors that could contribute, but considering the sharp change on or around August 28, there needs to be a single thing that happened that is causing most of this.
http://www.facebook.com/lynette.teachout Lynette O’Dell Teachout

I do not truly understand facebook and all that it has to offer. After reading your post, I recalled seeing the attached message…several times. Whether or not this is having an impact? I don’t know. Just thought I would put it up for consideration.

PSA I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you in a very PUBLIC social media venue. However, with the recent changes in FB, the public can now see activities in any wall. This happens when our friend hits “like” or “comment”, automatically, their friends would see our posts too. Unfortunately, we cannot change this setting by ourselves because Facebook has configured it this way.

So I need your help. Only you can do this for me. PLEASE place your mouse over my name above (do not click), a window will appear, now move the mouse on “FRIENDS” (also without clicking), then down to “Settings”, click here and a list will appear. REMOVE the CHECK on “COMMENTS & LIKE” by clicking on it. By doing this, my activity amongst my friends will no longer become public.

Many thanks! Paste this on your wall so your contacts would follow suit too, that is, if you care about your privacy…
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  You are absolutely on to something, Lynette. Not sure why I didn’t consider this since during the past two weeks I’ve received record traffic to this website for posts written on this very subject. It is a hoax that first popped up a year ago, and it’s made a comeback.
  
  I’m not ready to say this is the only reason for the drop because it was far too sudden and the copy/paste has been around for some time. Whether or not the copy/paste is 100% responsible for the drop or not, it absolutely has to contribute.
  
  Thanks for sharing!
  - http://twitter.com/MikeStraus Mike Straus
    
    I can see this having an impact, but the timing of the impact on Viral reach was to clear and sudden for this to be the primary factor. Something else changed in Edgerank for these stories or in insights for tracking Viral Reach, likely on 8/28 as tuesday is the typical day for Facebook updates.
    - http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
      
      I tend to agree, Mike, however this was a pretty explosive hoax. Understand that my little site — boosted almost entirely by three old blog posts on the subject — received 100,000 page views last week. This hoax disappeared for quite some time and spread so fast that I can see it potentially being the sole source of the issue.
      
      I’m with you. I’m not closing my mind on other causes, including something orchestrated by Facebook, but I don’t think we should undersell the potential immediate impact this thing could have caused.
http://twitter.com/bevisible Betsy Kent

Jon, I’m experiencing a tremendous drop, as well. Especially on one of the pages I manage that has 350K fans. Very frustrating.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  Sorry to hear that, Betsy. At least we’re all in this together. I have a few theories, but I’m hoping that Facebook can help explain what’s up.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1337854456 Greg Olotka

Confirmed, I’ve seen a drop off starting August 28-30. “Talking about it” has remained fairly consistent, but reach has dropped by about 60% since then.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  Thanks, Greg! It is strange that it doesn’t seem engagement is down much, but there is definitely a Reach issue. There are a few ways to potentially explain that, but it would help to have Facebook tell us something officially.
Juliette

Oddly enough, I saw a huge boost in viral reach in August – triple over what they were in July. This month is looking good, too, with a daily average exceeding the previous month so far. My page has 164,000 likes.
http://twitter.com/MikeStraus Mike Straus

I have definitely seen a decrease in Viral Reach since late August, sometimes less the 1 person reached per story generated, which is quite poor. PTAT numbers have stayed fairly similar.
Jay

Hi Jon-
I did a post about this last week, and am experiencing a similar hefty decrease… I agree that there could be a variety of causes, but the more people I hear chiming in the more I believe it’s by design.
http://halftimelessons.com/is-facebook-decreasing-your-post-reach-to-get-you-to-buy-promoted-posts/
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  Thanks for sharing, Jay. I try to separate myself from the people chiming in as much as possible because everyone is always ready to break out the conspiracy theories. I’m personally not seeing a change in engagement so much as reach, so I’m inclined to think the “problem” may just as easily be that data either is or was incorrect.
  
  This one isn’t ending soon, however, as it just seems to grow. So we’ll see!
http://www.facebook.com/LeanneMartellNZ Leanne Martell

Yip – I had noticed this as well – and like you – I was on the road for a week at the end of August so didn’t take it too seriously, however, it has not increased, and where a post would be seen by 1300 was now only being seen by 200-300. Something is not ok… Thanks for the technical breakdown.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1423440916 Raccoon Willie

haaaaaa, we were averaging around 900 “People Talking about” consistently until the past two months when it dramatically dropped to around 150, and then we get this in the email yesterday from the Facebook Team…

“Get $50 in Free Advertising on FacebookIt seems like you tried to create an ad but didn’t finish setting it up. To get you started with your first ad, we’re offering you a free $50 advertising coupon.”
spurk

Jon, Facebook changed their algorithins at about the time you are referring to. They now only serve up a fan pages posts to approximately 2% of your fans, In addition, lets say you post something and it is Like it, it doesn’t go to ALL my friends…it only goes to again that 2% or less. Also, at about that same time.(and this will become more prevalent going forward). Facebook will be monitoring how frineds are added and if they deem that said friend is not “a real friend” they will remove them from you list and not serve data to them. IN addition, facebook metrics don’t tell the whole story. For instance, many people may have liked your page, but if they never click on a post, never respond never share or comment, your posts will not be served up to them after a specified period. As if that isn’t bad enough, If your post is coming from an “automated” suite like hootsuite or tweet deck etc., facebook will block it. Why? because they are getting to many posts reported as spam from these sources. We have to remember that the same people who liked us on facebook my be on our tweet and our linked in etc. Blasting them with the exact same message repeatedly isn’t what facebook wants for their user experience. Want more? Ok.. just because someone has liked you, and facebook has served your post up to them, doesn’t mean they actually saw it. Firstly, they may have blokced your posts and secondly by the time they log in, there may be 75 or more posts on their wall…they probably don’t even see it. No one scrolls to the beginning of each day, especially if they have 500 plus friends! That would take all day. there are many reasons why facebook metrics do not give an accurate depiction of what is happening. These are just a few. Also, that “talking about” metric has no value. Taling about only means they presume the person saw it. YOu can check and see how many shares said post received. If it only got 10 sharess but 900 are talking about it, you know htat figure is scewed dramatically. That’s just what I know as a facebook developer….
Joseph

Thank you for writing this! I’ve noticed a similar drop starting on August 28 also, exactly as you’ve suggested. I was averaging a total weekly reach of around 45,000 and it plummeted to 25,000. It was caused by a huge drop in viral reach, just as you had thought.

Viral reach started increasing again on 9/6, and my reach is now back to normal levels. Has anybody else noticed that their reach has started going back up? I’ve been working double time to get the reach up, so I’m not sure if it’s because of my efforts or because Facebook fixed the problem…
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  My viral reach remains pretty low, Joseph. Overall reach actually isn’t bad and engagement has remained pretty flat. I’m also running some promoted posts on a contest starting today, though, so that will likely distort my numbers for a while!
Martha Kelly Art

My viral reach went off a cliff at the same time yours did. I’m so glad you wrote about this. I’ve done Google searches several times to try to figure out what’s happening, and this is the first mention of the problem I’ve seen. My theory is that Facebook is trying to force page owners to do paid posts instead of putting their information out for free. I think they just changed their business model. I’m getting roughly the same likes and comments from fans, but virtually no viral reach at all.
sheepterror

I’ve noticed my reach per post is down, dramatically. If it is a change in Facebook’s Insghts, it would be great if they’d tell us so I can explain the descent in reach.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  I agree! An explanation would be nice, and they have not returned my emails.
  
  I will say that I haven’t personally seen a drop in engagement, and that’s what I’d consider most important. Are you also seeing a drop there? I’m starting to wonder if there’s actually a change or error in reporting of Viral Reach since the numbers simply don’t add up now for me.
  - http://www.facebook.com/MichelleHazard2 Michelle Hazard
    
    I’ve actually had an increase in engagement especially if I share something local that is awesome.. I do not have sales attached to my page though so I have no numbers on that end to relate too.
    - http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
      
      I hear you, Michelle. Check out my follow-up to this (linked at the top of this post). When looking at Page Level data, I see a completely different story.
Rena

I have searched and searched for info on this…I have a Facebook page and was noticing the same thing. My revenue has even fallen in the last 3 weeks. I thought people were getting tired of me too, but I have over 9,000 fans and that number keeps rising, but my reach…it just fell off the face of the earth. I am soo glad I am not crazy. So, is the answer Pay to Promote?? because they get to then choose what group of my 9K sees it anyway…I am going to start a website I guess at this point, and direct link from my facebook to it. I knew free was too good to be true. Thank you for this. I am sharing it.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  You’re not crazy, Rena! However, I’d be careful about looking into all of the numbers. For my page, at least, Reach is the only thing down (caused by the ridiculous drop in Viral). But for whatever reason, everything else remains unchanged. So based on my data, I have no concerns — it appears instead to be either an error or change in reporting.
  
  If your revenues are down, I’d continue to monitor, but I wouldn’t immediately connect the dots to the reported drop in reach (based on the other results I’m seeing). It’s possible the two aren’t related.
  
  I’d keep at it, but monitor those numbers like a hawk! Good luck!
Ferdinand

I have noticed the same on my page. It seems pretty clear from Facebook’s perspective:

On the one hand, users are targeted in a more ‘efficient’ way and get less bombarded with messages they are unlikely to positively perceive or Like (The reach decreases, while ‘People talking about this’ remains).

On the other hand, Facebook will profit from not telling page-owners about this change because they will worry about the decreasing reach (which, in the end of the day, should have very little impact on the actual performance of a page) and, in conjunction with ad promo, pay for Facebook Advertising.

Conclusion: More relevant posts for more satisfied Facebook Users + Paying page owners.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  It’s not clear to me yet on what some of these numbers actually mean (either a true drop or error in reporting), but I agree with you that the lack of communication certainly works in Facebook’s favor and is likely intentional. When people see Reach is down, the first instinct is to “fix it.” And that often means promotion.
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http://profiles.google.com/witt.cassie Cassie Witt

Hey Jon! I had completely forgotten about this until I came across your post today. I noticed it as I was doing end-of-the-month stat reports. I remember thinking that it must have just been a “bug” and went on. I will definitely be keeping a better eye on these stats from now on.

This is big news and I decided to add it to my weekly newsletter. As I was writing it, though I came across this story:
http://www.insidefacebook.com/2012/07/03/facebook-updates-page-insights-to-make-reach-metric-more-accurate-include-mobile/

It seems that Facebook has changed their algorithm to be more “accurate”. Though why we’re not seeing the changes until almost 2 months after the fact, I don’t know. Also, it seems a bit too timely for me as it wasn’t too long before this that Facebook launched it’s promoted posts (and started pushing them by using the “Reach” number to get you to buy them). Whatever the real reason, it seems the changes are here to stay and they will make our jobs as Facebook admins even harder.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  Hey, Cassie! I had remembered that announcement as well. Just not clear if that’s what is happening here. Possible… But I don’t see how this would only impact Viral, you know?
  - Chad Davis
    
    After Facebook’s July announcement about more accurate reach, the main business page I manage saw a huge increase in (mostly viral) reach. I think this is because Facebook supposedly started including 3rd degree connections in the reach figure…so the friends of friends of fans who saw your post when I was forwarded on that far.
    - http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
      
      Chad — When I go further back than a couple of months, it is interesting that my “drop” in Viral Reach appears caused by an enormous spike the month before. So, that’s right. Taken in context, I don’t know that there’s really a drop at all.
      
      Make sure you check out my update on this (link at the top of this post).
  - http://profiles.google.com/witt.cassie Cassie Witt
    
    I know, that’s what I was thinking. I saw your update to this post. I’m going to crawl through my analytics to see if I’m seeing the same issues. I’ll get back to you on what I find.
http://www.facebook.com/MichelleHazard2 Michelle Hazard

I posted about my thoughts on Sept. 25th after I watched all my friends pass around the take me out of your feed posts.. http://networktcmi.blogspot.com/ I think it dropped right after they started selling ads. But even if you buy one I’m hearing they still have the drop and the ads are pretty worthless.
Santiago222

Hello, i have the same problem, share = viral reach, for what is button like, share and comment if it not show friends? bad bad bad,
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http://twitter.com/jewelfry Jewel Fryer

A good friend of mine had a discussion with Facebook on the 2Oth and was told that they were decreasing reach for many pages. It goes along with them opening up ‘offers’. They want to give pages an incentive to buy ads, promoted post and offers to increase their reach. They admitted to reducing the reach of some pages to as little as 5%.
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Melissa

I have been noticing the same thing on our page as well. We have a small page (small, local business) and our reach has dropped significantly, although I noticed the bigger drop more recently. We don’t even have the option to promote (not that I would – it just isn’t in the small business budget). Our reach was pretty consistently around 100 per post and now, some posts are in the 30′s! Glad I am not the only one experiencing this and thanks for your post!
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  How about engagement, Melissa? Have you measured the impact to comments/likes/shares/etc.?
  - Melissa
    
    I have not had time (after reading your blog) to do further research, but may try to dig a little deeper later this week (and will let you know what I find). I also read on another blog, that fb had another algorithm change (blog post date of 9/25 and mentioned the change being from the previous week). The 3/50 Project also posted on this today (on facebook) and many other page admins responded saying they noticed a decrease too.
http://www.fashion-isha.com Fashion-isha

Everything is down by me..not just viral reach. And my albums that I post are not even being seen by 10 people when they used to be seen by over 1,000. Something is definitely wrong and it’s making me really pissed off! Thanks for posting this!
xo
Sharon
http://www.facebook.com/amy.masser Amy Farran Masser

I have noticed the same thing. I have spent the past hour on line looking for a fix. I am surprised to see that this is the first article I have come across to discuss it. I have a boudoir photography business https://www.facebook.com/OohLaPhoto typically the viral reach is huge. Not only have I noticed a drop in viral reach, I noticed a drop in fan reach as well. The other day I posted an album and an individual photo. The individual photo was seen by 150 people before the album was seen by 12. One of my colleagues said he found that his reach went back to normal when he posted the album and then shared it on his wall as well. I haven’t tried this yet. I just started posting pictures individually since I saw that work first hand. Still experimenting. Would love to know what you find out.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  Hi, Amy! It’s definitely a widespread issue, but finding truth in the middle of conspiracy theories isn’t easy.
  
  If you haven’t already, check out this tool I created earlier in the week to help view trends associated with your Insights:
  
  http://www.jonloomer.com/2012/10/08/facebook-insights-helper/
  
  I’ll actually put out an update hopefully today to clear up some bugs, but I’m curious if you see anything new by using this.
  
  Thanks for your comment!
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http://twitter.com/nicolaslavin Nicola

[[Edited to remove comment posted on wrong blog! Apologies.]]
http://twitter.com/communicable communicable

I have nothing to add except to say that yes, we are seeing this too.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  Thanks!
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http://www.facebook.com/karthic.gurnani Karthic Gurnani

I’m seeing null in friends of fans although I have 200 real fans to my page. Any help? My page is 9 days old now.
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  I’d guess it has to do with your page being new and not all data being in or a minimum required to provide that data.
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Josh

My page has 25k fans, and I’ve seen the sudden and dramatic drop in viral reach. Thanks for this post by the way – this isn’t discussed enough.

Here’s an example of a statistic associated with a single post that’s just…well, ridiculous:

Likes 262, Shares 139, Comments 8, Organic 2110, Paid 7822, Viral 157 (???!!!!!!!)

WHAT???
- http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer
  
  It’s crazy, right? The key to me is whether non-fan engagement is remaining steady through the drop. If that’s the case, it makes me seriously wonder about the accuracy of the data. Thanks for providing your stats, Josh!
nutritionanddiet

Yes, a lot of my likes suddenly disappeared day after day, and I could not understand it. I’ve never found it that easy in the first place. I always look for free ways of advertising as I have not got too much money to play about with.
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http://www.facebook.com/ychrzescijanski Yasmin Chrzescijanski

Hi Jon,

Read this a while ago and just googled to find it again to share with a few of the other marketing managers in our portfolio after one of my posts yesterday had 592 people “see” the post (including 14 viral impressions) yet 1,115 people interact with the post (click on it etc) and 1071 people “talk about” the post including 421 shares, 124
comments and 889 likes

While I have seen issues before yesterday’s post (which lead me to find this blog to begin with) the above stats were the best example showing the flaws in the reporting system on post level data.

(We have almost 5,000 fans on a Shopping Centre page)
Kasia

I’m only a small business however I’ve been watching this today the people talking about my page went up 78.13% but weekly total reach went down -30.58%? It seems the more work I put into advertising the worse its becoming? I’m no mathematician but there seems to be an anomaly?
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Gaurika

Thanks for the awesome post. Even my website (www.eduamigo.com) earlier had an awesome reach of 100,000+ but now it has decreased.

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Is Facebook Viral Reach Down? A Problem Spotted in Insights

The Data Evaluated

What Hasn’t Changed

What Changed a Little

What Changed a Lot

What it Means

What About You?

Powered by the Genesis Framework

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Listen!

Jon’s Video Blog on YouTube

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5 Facebook Page App Ideas Just in Time for Summer

4 Ways to Profit on Facebook Without a Facebook Page

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