Having followers on Facebook can be an exciting experience. Knowing when new people start following your profile allows you to connect with them and grow your network. So does Facebook actually notify you when someone new decides to follow your profile? Let’s take a closer look.
How Following Works on Facebook
On Facebook, following someone is different from being friends with them. When you follow a profile, you can see their public posts in your News Feed without them needing to approve you as a friend. It’s a one-way connection – you follow them, but they don’t have to follow you back.
Following on Facebook operates similarly to following someone on other social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram. It gives you a way to keep up with people you find interesting without needing to become Facebook friends.
Who Can Follow You on Facebook
Not all Facebook profiles can be followed. Here are the requirements for who can follow you on Facebook:
- Your profile must be public – only public profiles can be followed.
- The person wanting to follow you must have an account on Facebook.
As long as your profile is public, anyone on Facebook can choose to follow you without needing your approval. You don’t get to pick and choose who can follow your public profile.
Who Can You Follow
When it comes to who you can follow, there are a few requirements:
- You can only follow public profiles – private profiles can’t be followed.
- Some public figures and celebrities have special verified profiles that don’t allow following.
- Pages on Facebook can be followed, but groups cannot.
So as long as someone has a public profile and hasn’t limited their visibility, you are free to follow them to see their public updates.
Notifications When You Have New Followers
Now that we’ve covered the basics of how following works, let’s get to the main question – does Facebook notify you when someone starts following your profile?
Email Notification
The first way Facebook may notify you of new followers is through email. If you have your email notifications enabled for Facebook activity, you may get an email alerting you when someone new starts following your profile.
To check your email notification settings:
- Click on the down arrow at the top right of Facebook.
- Select “Settings & Privacy” then click “Settings.”
- Click “Email” in the left menu.
- Under “Email notifications” check that “Someone follows you” is enabled.
With this setting turned on, you’ll get an email to your associated email address when a new follower is added. The email will include their name and profile picture.
Notifications Tab
The other place you may find notifications about new followers is by checking your notifications tab within Facebook.
To view your notifications:
- Click on the bell icon at the top right of Facebook.
- Click “View All” to open your notifications tab.
This tab shows you recent activity on your profile. If someone has recently followed you, it may show up here with a note saying “[Name] started following you.”
However, Facebook does not reliably show follows in the notifications tab. You may only see a fraction of users who have recently followed you show up here.
Follower Count
The last way to passively keep track of new followers is to watch your follower count. This number appears on your profile under your intro section:
While not a true notification, you can keep an eye on this number to see it steadily increasing as more people follow you.
Other Ways to See Your Followers
While direct notifications for new followers may be limited, there are some other ways you can find out who is following your profile on Facebook.
Follower List
You can access a list of all your current followers by visiting your followers page:
- Go to your profile page
- Click “More” under your intro section
- Select “Followers” to view the complete list
Reviewing this list periodically can help you identify new followers even without notifications.
Follower Insights
Facebook offers an Follower Insights feature for content creators and public figures who have many followers. This provides analytics on your followers including demographic data.
To access Follower Insights:
- Go to your profile
- Click “More” under your intro
- Select “Follower Insights”
Looking at the trends and sources for your followers can show spikes when you’ve gained new followers.
Best Practices for Managing Followers
While Facebook itself may not provide robust notifications around new followers, here are some tips to help you stay on top of your growing follower base:
- Check your email notifications – Enable email updates for new followers.
- Periodically review your followers list – Look for any new or unfamiliar names.
- Watch your follower count – Note steady increases in this number.
- Use Follower Insights – Check for spikes and trends in your audience.
- Follow back – Consider following some followers to build connections.
- Engage with followers – Like and comment on their posts to stand out.
Proactively managing your followers allows you take advantage of this audience to improve engagement and grow your presence on Facebook.
Other Follower Notifications
In addition to gaining new followers, there are a couple other follower-related activities that Facebook may notify you about:
Lost Followers
Just like gaining followers, losing followers also won’t trigger reliable notifications. Your follower count will decrease, but you likely won’t receive any alert when someone unfollows you.
The one exception is if an excessive number of people unfollow you within a short timeframe. Facebook may then send you an alert about unusual changes to your follower count.
Suspicious Followers
Facebook may also alert you if it detects suspicious or fake accounts following you. This is to prevent artificial inflation of follower counts.
These notifications will say something like “Unusual follow activity” and show the suspected fake accounts. You can then remove them as followers to keep your profile secure.
Follower Notifications for Facebook Pages
The notification situation is a bit different when it comes to Facebook Pages rather than individual profiles. Pages have access to Facebook Insights that provide more detailed data.
Notifications in Page Insights
When someone follows your Facebook Page, you can view this activity in your Page Insights. Insights will show total page follower counts over time as well as data on new page likes and unlikes.
Page admins will also receive email summaries of Insights activity including new follower stats for your Page. So Pages have more robust options to track follows.
Notifications from Page Posts
When you make a post from your Facebook Page, you can enable notifications to receive alerts when followers interact with that specific post through likes, comments, shares and more.
Turning on notifications for individual Page posts helps you stay on top of engagement from your followers beyond just seeing new follows.
Following Suggestions
Separately from notifications about your own followers, Facebook may also suggest new profiles for you to follow based on your interests and connections.
You will see these recommendations in places like your homepage News Feed and the “Discover” section. The suggestions come from Facebook, not notifications from individuals choosing to follow you.
Limits to Follower Notifications
While Facebook provides some follower notifications, there are also limits to what it will alert you about:
- No alerts for every new follower – Only sporadic emails or notifications.
- No alerts when followers are lost – Your count will decrease without notice.
- Follows not shown consistently in notifications tab – Only some may appear.
The lack of follower notification options can be frustrating if you are trying to closely monitor your audience growth and engagement. But there are still techniques you can use like checking email alerts, monitoring your follower count, and reviewing your followers list to stay informed.
Why Follower Notifications are Limited
This raises the question – why doesn’t Facebook provide more alerts and options for monitoring followers? Here are some potential reasons:
- Technical complexity – The huge volume of activity on Facebook makes detailed notifications difficult to support at scale.
- User experience – Facebook likely worries too many notifications would overwhelm users.
- Business priorities – Follower alerts may not be a high priority relative to other features.
Additionally, Facebook may want to encourage visiting the platform directly rather than relying solely on notifications to understand your follower activity.
While the lack of follower notifications can be inconvenient, Facebook likely limits them to balance product capabilities with user experience.
Third-Party Tools
If Facebook’s built-in notifications don’t meet your needs for tracking followers, third-party social media management tools are another option.
Here are some popular tools that provide more robust analytics and alerts for Facebook followers:
| Tool | Follower Notification Features |
|---|---|
| Hootsuite | – Alerts on new Facebook followers – Unfollower tracking |
| Sprout Social | – Real-time alerts for new followers – Follower list importing & monitoring |
| Sendible | – Email digests of new Facebook followers – Demographics on followers |
These tools fill in the gaps around follower notifications directly within Facebook. So if you need more tracking capabilities, third-party options can provide helpful solutions.
Conclusion
Facebook provides fairly limited builtin notifications for tracking new followers on both personal profiles and Pages. You may get occasional emails or see some follows in your notifications tab, but robust alerts are not supported.
However, by monitoring your follower count, checking your followers list, reviewing Insights data, and enabling email notifications, you can still piece together decent visibility into how your audience is growing.
Alternatively, social media management platforms can give you more direct follower monitoring and analytics if the native Facebook options don’t meet your needs.
But the lack of follower notifications is likely influenced by the technical and user experience challenges of supporting billions of users. While not ideal for those wanting more data on their followers, Facebook’s approach aims to balance business needs with practical capabilities.