So one of my client (a small but overzealous startup ready to make its mark) asked me recently, “But why should I spend on Facebook Advertising that yields a CPL (cost per like) of 10 cents (~Rs 6) when there are sites that claim guaranteed likes of 5000/30USD plus another 1000 free as a special offer?”
If you are an end consumer focused business/service that want to project growth in terms of facebook likes and fans, you might be lured by this proposal, in fact, almost ready to sign off your hard-earned 30 USD, esp. since the offer says it’s completely legal and safe.
Yes, it is legitimate to buy facebook likes and fans. But let’s just go over what you are going to end up with.
Without naming names (but it should ring a warning bell if the name has “killer” or “fragilesoul” or “earthsaviour” in it), these facebook “like” sellers have a system where they either have bots or third-world, unemployed labor creating fake profiles and generating likes for you.
So in essence, they are mere numbers, i.e. inactive accounts that can do nothing much for you…for sure, not buy/comment/rave about your product/services! So even if they seem to have made you popular, they cannot make you rich.
And worst of all, they will be detected and deleted in some time. Yeh Facebook hai, yeh saab janta hai..Facebook hai! 🙂 Between Google and Facebook, they can figure out the entire genealogy of your clan and maybe your dogs too; fake likes/profiles stand no chance!
Facebook has started purging fake likes/profiles with its Operation Unlike. Check out the story on how the top 20 brands lost significant facebook likes in a day!
Now you may think, I just need numbers to impress my investors. But beware on that too. Unless your investors are dumb (and they rarely are), they will know how to track fake facebook fans on a page!
So a piece of advise for all the startups out there: There are no shortcuts, boss! If you take shortcut, you can get cut short!
Note: Any similarity with Sunday’s TOI article around the same topic is purely coincidental.
Preeti Somani is the India Head of a digital marketing consultancy agency Social Strategi. She also occasionally blogs @Everyday gyaan, albeit in perpetual beta. Feel free to connect with her at psomani@socialstrategi.com.
Sahil
To add on it guys:
To gain Facebook likes i ran a 1000 rs campaign with FB officially ad n trust me they got me 281 likes and the moment i stopped the campaign and did not allow them for next campaign. They surprisingly took the likes back one by one.
Business does need a social presence. But its never gonna work far unless your own customers liking you. I think totally not true that Facebook given genuine likes and other digital advertisers donot?
@PureMart- Today we are with 250 likes and all all are purely organic likes gained in 45days since we launched http://www.puremart.in
Saraswathi Pulluru
Totally agree Preeti. When we buy likes, it’s like we are standing in front of a big house and taking a picture. The picture is with you, the house is not. When we earn likes, it’s like showing the 1 rupee coin in our hand. Even though it’s very small, it still ours.
Preeti Somani
Thats interesting. I have not seen that happen with FB advertising/campaign. Care to detail further?
Nevertheless, glad to hear that your customers giving you organic likes. Those are the best.
Preeti Somani
Great analogy, Saraswathi. Liked it a lot. 🙂
Preeti Somani
Great to hear that. FB ads have worked for all my clients as well. Do you have a page you can share with us? Just curious about the cost per like amt as well. Can you share if you dont mind?
Mohul Ghosh
If there is a number which signifies success, then people will manipulate to get that number higher. Example in school.. “who is the best student?” “one who gets max marks!” and so the process of gaming the system starts.. same with Facebook. Those who buy facebook likes are simply showcasing the numbers to impress a new customer. In some other world, this maybe termed as fraud.
Amit Dang
Guys! I run a healthcare solutions company and only update high end drug and pharma related news/ updates on my company’s page. Why am I telling you this because I feel by no means a customer care support guy or an engineering student or even an accounts guy should like my company’s page.
Now check this out:
1. Me taking care of company’s page which is purely into healthcare, drug approval news updates etc, is relevant to either doctors, pharmacy guys or people working in pharma industry. So I ran a campaign using FB for which I had to spend only 100/- INR per day. But guess what, though the likes increased but 95% of them were irrelevant. How I know? Ofcourse a guy working in vodafone customer care won’t like my page coz he won’t understand a word from it. But almost major chunk of likes were from such people. Now if the same would have happened on any other page, say flipkart, any music related page, by no means you will think that they are “not genuine” coz anybody would be interested in music and online deals. Hence, I stopped trusting FB likes
2. Though the number of likes increased, but the number of views that each post used to show were almost same. What that means? I feel that facebook has a hidden application somewhere, wherein people’s random profiles will get linked to the page likes but the same page updates won’t come on their page. This is an absolute assumption but somewhere I feel it is true.
3. I stopped the campaign and like stopped. But later on, they got increased genuinely. Almost 100 of them and so the number of views.
4. I had put all speciality key words while making the campaign like orthopaedics, gynaecology,etc which has no link to any other profession, as mentioned above.
5. Few of my friend’s pages, who have run such campaigns, they have 8-10k likes on their page but comment and likes on individual posts? 1-2 or max. 5
Hence, I’m of the opinion that FB campaign is purely bogus and have decided not to go for it anytime. Specially when I’m about to launch my rock band.
Nitish Mehta
high FB likes wont help you in business unless they are actually Being liked ..! take example of TRDH forum it has 5000 user , in ref, to other forum not HUGE , rather small but all are here because actually they like this forums they actually believe in motto of TRDH , similarly buying likes will give you one small time happiness but actually wont help u in long run .
rather then spending money on buying likes , spend same money in content writing and running your page in better way will help
Preeti Somani
Well said, Mohul. But the truth is, such laurels (high # of likes) impresses initial stamp of credibility. And therefore entices the businesses/folks with a tactical frame of mind.
Preeti Somani
Truly revealing. Thanks for sharing this. I have a few questions regarding this. Will respond with those later in the day, once I’m free.
Preeti Somani
Totally agree with you, Nitish! But that is much more hard work. And some folks get lured by the shortcuts, esp. if they are easily available and perceivably beneficial.
Ashish Parik
I am running two facebook pages in my facebook account. These are our company pages. When I created the first page I was not aware of the use of social media as a marketing tool. I saw the option of “Create Page” and I created it. Slowly and gradually I understood the importance of it and sent invitations to friends requesting them to like our page.
So what is the problem? Why do I need to correlate running facebook page and running a country?
I have around 793 friends in facebook. Out of these 793 there are 665 peoples who have not liked ICS24BY7.COM page and 694 have not liked cakehunt.com page.
I don’t have any complaint with the people who have not liked our pages. They have all the rights to like to dislike.
Issue with FB Page:
Almost everybody knows the cost of advertisement on facebook. How much does it pinch to spend money on facebook advertisement? This ad will give additional likes. Few may be genuine and more will be fake likes.
As a start up, we need to utilize the funds in hand with due diligence. Many times we compromise on our personal priorities to pay for the dues related to our start up. Don’t we?
Likes helps us spread the word of mouth. It may go viral with your one like. If I like page of ABC Company, my friends will come to know about it. There is possibility that they may also like it.
Alok Rodinhood Kejriwal
Preeti, check out something related I had created on this topic :-))