Ever single business with a Facebook account has been there; you setup a new page for your business, and then hold your head in your hands and weep in discontent at the shamefully low number of LIKES your page has achieved in its 5 minute existence. And that’s when you ask yourself…. “how do I get more LIKES”. Some people take the easy path of fake Facebook likes, and some people take the less trodden hard route. Lets look at the implications.
The Easy Path
Having set up your page you look in horror at the woeful “3 people like this”. Sadly one of those is yourself, and the other two sit in the office with you. The instant answer which pops into your head is to hit Google with “buy Facebook page likes”. WOW…. look at this….
So you can buy 1,000 likes for as little as £12…. great. You know the 1,000 accounts are not genuine people interested in your business, but it will make your page, and your business look ultra popular. You also take the time to email your 200 large family and ask all them to LIKE your page. Very soon you have 1,250 people liking your page, broken down as;
1,000 paid for LIKES
3 LIKES from people in the business
200 Family & friends
47 Past customers
The Less Trodden Hard Route
Blissfully unaware that you can actually buy Facebook false likes, or unwilling to do so you take a different tack. Your page has just a few likes, but you decide to take it slowly and grow the likes with genuine people. You send an email to all your past customers who you think might be interested in buying from you again in the future. You also put an attractive link to the Facebook page on your website, and offer buyer discounts to people who have liked your page.
Very soon your page has 100 likes made up of;
3 people in the business
97 Website visitors and past customers
The Outcomes
The obvious outcome at a glance is that one of the pages has a visible 100 LIKES, and the other has 1,250. You might think that the page with 1,250 is at an advantage… but you couldn’t be further from the truth. The company who chose the Easy Route have actually done more harm than good.
When you post something onto your Facebook page, not everyone who LIKED your page will see it. Facebook will only display your status updates to a small percentage of people who liked your page. Why? Because Facebook want you to pay to BOOST your posts to increase that percentage. Facebook fake likes can actually work against you.
So, imagine you write a status update, ‘Special Offer – Just In – Blah blah blah” It’s a great offer, and you believe lots of your customers should be interested in it. Facebook might display this status to 10% of people who LIKED your page. Heres what would happen in the above two scenarios;
The Easy Route – If you chose the easy route, your ad is going to appear to around 125 people (10%). However, as only 47 of your 1,250 LIKES are genuine customers, the chance of those people being within the 10% are massively diminished. In actual fact only 1 of your genuine customers sees the status update. Major fail.
The Less Trodden Hard Route – If you chose the hard route, your ad is going to appear to 10% of 100, i.e 10 people. As 97% of your LIKES are genuine customers, it turns out that 9 people see your post. Great result for a new page.
Double Whammy
Aside from the obvious issue above, there is a second major problem you are going to encounter by purchasing fake Facebook LIKES…. and the worst thing is that it will be a problem for as long as your Facebook page exists. One of the methods Facebook uses to make money (yes they are a business), is to allow business owners to BOOST their posts, as touched on above. When you boost a post, you can do so to people who have liked your page. However, the price you pay depends on how many people you wish to reach. If you have a high percentage of fake account, you are effectively going to be paying to promote your posts to people who are never going to become a customer… more than likely fake account who don’t actually have a real person behind them.
Fake Facebook Likes Summary
Don’t buy fake accounts, and don’t encourage everyone on the planet to LIKE your page. You only want genuine potential customers to LIKE your page. Consider each person who LIKES your page to come with a cost of ownership.
If you would like some help with managing your Social Media account, contact us and we can put a bespoke plan together for your business…. but whatever you do, don’t buy fake Facebook likes.
Q: Are fake Facebook likes worth it?
A: In summary, no they are not. Should you ever wish to use Facebook as a serious marketing strategy, fake likes will most likely result in your having a higher cost per click, and paying unnecessary funds to advertise to fake accounts. They are also against the Facebook terms of service, and could potentially risk the good standing of your Facebook account.
Q: Are fake Facebook likes illegal?
A: As Facebook are not a legal body, they have the legal jurisdiction. However, they can govern their own rules, regulations and policies, and they do state that Fake Facebook accounts are against their terms of services, and as such your account with Facebook could be disabled or removed as a result of using them. Any attempt at falsely manipulating your Facebook page is against their terms and should be avoided.