RR Corner: from sombre to humour!: The Curious Case of ‘Buying Facebook Likes’

By Ritesh(R) Chugh and Ripan(R) Sethi

RR have observed a growing phenomenon of paid Facebook page and post likes, which they are pondering over in this month’s article.

You or your business is not getting the attention or social approval you are perhaps seeking on Facebook. So, you buy likes for your Facebook pages and posts! Likes from many unscrupulous providers come at a very cheap price, usually starting from as low as $5 for 1000 page likes. However, who are you fooling with those fake likes? Perhaps, your existing and prospective customers or your friends! But they aren’t naïve to not notice how your fan base has grown exponentially in a very little time, often overnight. These fake likes do very little to actually grow your business but rather tell a different story. And remember, it is not a popularity contest as those fake likes are not going to convert into any tangible business.

Facebook algorithm (such as EdgeRank) dictates who will see your posts and also what they will see. Having a lot of inactive people who have liked your page will also mean that the algorithm will restrict your post’s reach organically and alienate your real existing fans. This will translate to lower engagement and comments because your paid fans will definitely not be engaging with any of the content you post. Unless you want to pay again for someone to start liking your posts too!

And then automatically, you will also notice a decline in your page reach as your fake fans are not interested in any of the content you post. Your fake friends might just be software bots, who aren’t real people anyway. When you have a large collection of fake fans, their demographic and personal data (gender, interest, location) is also of no use to you because fake data has no real value either.

And what about your credibility? A page with 10,000 likes but any post you make only receives 5-10 likes. Or a post with hundreds of likes but no comments. Sounds fishy, doesn’t it? Your audience is quick to observe the trick and as a result their interaction with your posts will also dwindle over time. Let’s not even get into the unethical and dishonest nature of your approach to garner social approval and popularity. Moreover, the fake profiles are not your target audience, hence spending any money on buying likes is a wastage of resources.

Well, in real life, you can’t buy friendship so don’t buy likes that will prove ineffective anyway unless you just want to boost your own ego. Likes are just a number and paying for them will not bring you any benefit but will be detrimental to your reputation, trust and credibility! So, let your fan base grow organically than paying to buy them. What do you think?