I just saw an interesting video by Veritasium about how most likes generated from Facebook ads are fake. If you are using Facebook advertising to get likes to your page, then this video is a must watch!
Basically, there are “like farms” around the world. These businesses set up websites that sell thousands of Facebook likes to other people and businesses for a low cost.
So why would these “like farms” click on and like your Facebook page? Apparently, to avoid being detected by Facebook. In other words, these fake profiles will like other pages for free just to look more like a real profile to Facebook.
These fake likes are bad for you for a few reasons. First of all, these fake profiles will never engage with your Facebook page or posts, which means your overall engagement level will go down.
Because of this, your content will be shown to less real people that actually liked your page. Which means you have to keep paying Facebook to get more exposure.
Most of these “like farms” are in developing countries like Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and more. But if you think that restricting your geographical reach to just countries like the US and UK will prevent this issue, then think again. “Like farms” exist everywhere – watch the video below for more details:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag
I don’t know if there’s anything you can do to completely prevent getting likes from fake profiles if you are using Facebook ads. So for now, it might be best to just use ads to get people to visit your website and get your likes naturally. Facebook marketing experts like Brian Moran have always advocated using ads to get people to sign up for your email list rather than paying for likes.
What’s a Facebook Marketer to Do?
There are many people that are still doing very well with Facebook marketing. A few important points:
1. Be careful with your targeting – In many cases, there’s no need to target third world countries.
2. Most successful Facebook marketers that I know of are trying to get people on their email list or going for the direct sale rather than getting likes to their Facebook page.
UPDATE: Jon Loomer (Facebook expert) who has used Facebook ads frequently posted a good response to this today (2/11/14). While click farms do exist and can be a problem, proper targeting and Facebook marketing tactics can overcome this obstacle. Poor targeting of course can result in the results described above:
http://www.jonloomer.com/2014/02/11/facebook-fraud-response
Also, here’s another detailed viewpoint from the Promodo, an online marketing agency:
www.promodo.com/blog/marketers-response-to-facebook-fraud-video
About Brian Liang