The arrival of the Facebook business page into the hands of marketers was seen as a significant new channel of communication for a brand/business. It also heralded a struggle to build more page likes as a way of emphasising the brand’s image and force within that sector.
We have all heard of the existence of ‘click farms’ based in the developing world where you can buy Facebook likes to boost your numbers significantly e.g. pay $70 for 1000 likes. While this process is mostly frowned upon by marketers, some have definitely bought into it for whatever purpose, perhaps to build credibility. However how credible or useful is it to have a fake profile like your page? They are not going to engage with your content or sign up for your services so really people should ask what is the point.
The introduction by Facebook of their highly lucrative ad platform meant that marketers and business owners could legitimately have a way of boosting their page like numbers which so many of them craved.
The below video raises a big issue; is there a point to paying for legitimate Facebook ‘Get More Likes’ campaigns. It is a really interesting social experiment video created by Derek Muller and his science blog Veritasium which explores these paid like campaigns. Muller questions the whole efficacy of paying for likes even through the legitimate avenues. In effect, Muller derives the conclusion that you get the same result from paying for likes on a legitimate basis as you do from paying for likes through click farms ie fake likes that are essentially worthless.
The conclusion we get from this video and related background research is that it is in fact a waste of money to pay for likes on Facebook whatever way you choose to do it.
