Beware the meaning of Facebook Likes. Sometimes – a lot of the time? – they don’t carry the meaning and value that they appear to. For “Facebook Likes” read “Fake Likes”.
Once upon a time Facebook “Likes” were genuine. People liked what they saw and said so by clicking the button. These Like buttons are all over Facebook, of course, and on almost all websites.
The Like Button has become a currency. It is the measure of how successful a Facebook page has become. The Facebook Like Button has become a badge of success like a Rolls Royce or Mercedes car.
People who create Facebook pages chase “Likes”. They have become impatient in the ever more competitive internet world. They can’t wait for Likes to grow organically, naturally. It would take years, if ever, to achieve a million Likes.
But today a million Likes is not uncommon. We don’t know how many are true but there is a burgeoning market in selling FB Likes as they are a commodity just like a supermarket product.
There are many businesses who charge quite modest sums selling tens of thousands of FB Likes. It depends on what region you are focusing on. UK Likes are more expensive than world Likes. Polish FB Likes are cheaper than American FB Likes and so on.
The value of an FB Like measures the value of a country! Can you believe that?
Many Facebook page managers are buying hundreds of thousands of FB Likes. And many websites are buying them too. They set up a Facebook page and buy a million likes. That may cost about $5,000 – $10,000 at a wild guess.
Then they feed their Facebook visitors to their website by posting links to their site on their Facebook page. Lovemeow is the classic example.
All this does is to recycle the same cat stuff from FB to their site. And what makes it more pointless is that they get the material from FB in the first place, sometimes.
However, I believe it is commercially viable even if though some “expert” commentators say it is not worthwhile because they are not real Likes. I don’t believe them. You can in fact buy real Likes and it also creates validity even though it is fake. The world is full of successful fakes. Fakery works in this world; not always but sufficiently frequently to make it worthwhile sometimes.
If Lovemeow have paid even $20,000 for over a million Facebook Likes they will recoup all that and end up with a large profit over time through advertising on their site.
It is just a commercial enterprise using their audience to make money. That is fine and normal but don’t be taken in by “Likes”. Sometimes they are genuine but this is occurring less and less frequently. Many are false and simply purchased en masse.
I’ll have to join the bandwagon. There is no other choice.
Note: FB Likes below posts are genuine. It is just the Likes that relate to the page I am referring to.
There should be ‘dislike’ and ‘hate’ buttons too!
Although I suppose they would be open to abuse by people targeting those who don’t agree with their own views.
There is always someone waiting to swoop on someone else.
Fake likes annoy because it just means that in order to compete you have to buy likes and become a fake yourself. It’s madness on the internet.
You missed the most-excellent example of all.
Did you even know that Alley Cat Allies hires click-farms and runs fake-like software to garner 1,000 new likes per day? They were stalled at 60,000 supporters for many many years, until they heard about those neat toys back in February of last year from media announcements of their existence in how to manipulate your own popularity. Then their “likes” steadily climbed at exactly 1000 “likes” per day since then. Con-artists and deception-artists, one and all.
I recently heard but can’t find but I think Facebook is about to put a stop to LIKE buying when the new terms of service go into effect. If I see the link I’ll post it here.
Thanks Elisa. It has become mad and totally undermined the purpose of the Like Button.
interesting!!