Fake “Likes” are now on Facebook’s radar

Facebook recently announced on their business blog that they are now taking a much firmer stance against fake activity; especially fake likes. Therefore, if your business has ever bought likes or is thinking of buying some, my advice is – absolutely don’t.

To understand the issue with fake likes, we need to first look at the purpose of genuine likes and the value they bring. When someone likes your business page it creates a connection between them and your brand. Any future updates you post are likely to appear in that user’s news feed, giving you a channel through which to communicate.

Over time, you can build relationships with your followers by providing them with useful and informative posts. If these posts strike the right chord, there is a strong chance your followers will in turn re-share them, thus boosting your brand’s reach even further.

With established relationships in place and engaged followers, your brand is in the best possible position to pitch potential sales via social media channels. You cannot do this if all the likes your page has are fake.

But if fake likes serve no purpose, why do people buy them?

The simple answer is to make their business appear more popular than it actually is and the businesses who tend to do this are just starting out on their social media journeys.

Fake likes can also prevent genuine followers from seeing your updates, which is disastrous for your online marketing efforts.

The reality is that the only people who benefit from fake likes are the ones who sell them. It’s no wonder then that Facebook are now taking a much tougher stance on this practice – which is essentially spam.

Using their sophisticated rules and machine learning, the social networking giant are constantly looking to identify suspicious behaviour. When they do, they undertake all means necessary to eliminate it. This may involve blocking associated accounts and removing all fake likes instantly.

Therefore, if you’ve paid for fake likes, they are very likely to be removed in the future without warning. Imagine how it will look when your business page’s followers take an overnight nosedive.

It’s not just technical measures, however, that Facebook use to combat spam on their platform. According to their blog post, the social network “have obtained nearly $2 billion in legal judgments against spammers” – something that might make people who sell likes think twice about in the future.

Furthermore, Facebook now also limit the amount of likes that accounts can give and sometimes ask for additional verification, limiting the spammers’ overall effectiveness.

When you first start building your online presence it can be tempting to try and boost your perceived popularity. However, this will not benefit you in the long-run and may even come back to bite you.

Remember that the purpose of your social media marketing campaigns is to build relationships with your customers and nurture them through to fruition. Fake likes may make you seem like a successful business but you’re only kidding yourselves.

Create content that is fresh and resonates with your audience. Genuine likes and shares will soon follow and your business will benefit from a much more responsive follower base.