Facebook confirmed that the way branded pages count checkins will change but didn't respond to a question about whether this will impact overall numbers.
A letter being sent to branded page owners was posted on AllFacebook. It reads:
"We are revising checkin numbers on Facebook pages to give you a more accurate picture of how people are visiting your business. Among these changes, previously, if an individual checked into your business multiple times, each check-in was counted into your page’s total check-in number.
"Now, if someone checks into your business multiple times within a 12-hour period, that action will be counted as one unique check-in. In addition, when people tag their friends at a location and upload a photo, those photo tags will be counted more holistically.
"For example, if 20 photos were uploaded to an album at a specific location, we’ll now count that as a single check-in. If Jessica checks into a location and tags five friends in the photo she uploads with her check-in, the total checkins number will be six — Jessica plus her five friends".
A Facebook spokesperson says this will affect overall checkin numbers for Pages associated with a certain place.
Numbers may not be as impressive once the change occurs, but this will give page owners a more accurate idea of how many people they're attracting. Owners of branded pages may just have to reconfigure how they measure success based on page metrics.