Buying Fake Users to Kick Start Social Campaign?

[addz123]

Hi,

Someone told me buying 1k followers or Facebook likes for my page is a good way to kickstart a social media campaign since it builds trust. i.e. "If 1,000 people have liked this site then it must be good".

Do you agree with this? Do you see any downside to paying for 1000 fake followers on Twitter/Facebook, or even any potential risk with SEO? I'm obviously not going to do this with G+.

Cheers.

Adam

 

[monaghan]

I guess you need to know the followers. I only "like" something if I actually like it or there's an incentive such as a give away, whether anyone else likes it is not relevant to me

 

[Blossom]

Better to invest the money in a contest. That way you get genuine profiles/followers and the potential for many more than 1k if you have a good prize and promote the contest effectively.

I have tested buying followers for Twitter before (not my personal account, a brand new one). Got 1000; within a couple of months it was down to 700. Twitter cracks down pretty heavily on fake accounts, not sure if Facebook does the same.

 

[Aegean]

Better to invest the money in a contest. That way you get genuine profiles/followers and the potential for many more than 1k if you have a good prize and promote the contest effectively.

I have tested buying followers for Twitter before (not my personal account, a brand new one). Got 1000; within a couple of months it was down to 700. Twitter cracks down pretty heavily on fake accounts, not sure if Facebook does the same.

Addz123, this is good advice from Blossom. I also think you should go up this road.

 

[retired_member36]

I personally wouldnt bother buying likes.

Invest the money into a ad campaign on facebook, There are some fab tips on how to catch the eye of potential likers. (Google successful facebook like ad campaign)

Also on your site if possible run a little content, competition where they need to join your facebook page, it normally has a good success rate.

I know a few people who have bought likes before and a lot of the likes were just purely made up accounts which is obviously no benefit to you at all.

 

[peacock]

If you want to get engagement / traffic / branding from your FB page then don't buy fans.
There is a system where FB gives you more visibility if your likers engage with you. The fake ones won't.. so your engagement level will be low leading to FB not showing your updates on people's walls.

Even for contests - I have run some and looked through the profiles of the new likers and some had around 3000 pages that they "liked"... Presumably other pages that had run contests. This again is an engagement nightmare.

If on the other hand you just want some "social proof" then go ahead!

 

[addz123]

Yes, I know fake fb users provide no value. My entire point was that it might be easier to build up a Facebook Page and convince users to join it if it "looks popular" i.e. has 1,000+ fans to begin with.

I can probs do this for $20 no problem, but I also wanted to know if there's any Facebook/SEO risk from this.

 

[Jamie101]

Here's what I've wondered for a while, people say its a good idea to run competitions to get fans, which I'm sure it is.

But would people really enter the competition (liking/sharing etc.) if you have very few followers (let's say <100).

I wouldn't bother entering a competition if the page had very few followers to be honest, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Blossom]

Here's what I've wondered for a while, people say its a good idea to run competitions to get fans, which I'm sure it is.

But would people really enter the competition (liking/sharing etc.) if you have very few followers (let's say <100).

I wouldn't bother entering a competition if the page had very few followers to be honest, but maybe that's just me.

I started a FB page from scratch and ran a competition. It got me about 1500 followers (almost all of whom stuck), but I didn't promote it that heavily.

I think most people have the mentality that the fewer people like the page, the more chance they have of winning. It's free to enter so they have nothing to lose. The bigger issue is getting your target audience entering, but again if it's just to 'look good', it's not a problem.

 

[Jamie101]

I started a FB page from scratch and ran a competition. It got me about 1500 followers (almost all of whom stuck), but I didn't promote it that heavily.

I think most people have the mentality that the fewer people like the page, the more chance they have of winning. It's free to enter so they have nothing to lose. The bigger issue is getting your target audience entering, but again if it's just to 'look good', it's not a problem.

Yeah I suppose that's true. I know a few people who enter competitions on Facebook only if there are less than 20 people in it actually.

Might think about running a competition like this soon.

 

[lufc]

My cousin did a similar thing but she dosn;t seem to have gotten much out of it.

If it's only $20 maybe just do it and see if it helps to increase your 'like rate'

 

[Drago1986]

here's a contest related question (thread hijack here)

Could you do something similar with newsletter subscriptions? I was thinking on a site you could advertise a prize based on recommended sign ups.

Not sure how you would track this but every person you refer adds your email address as the person that referred them, the person with the most referred sign ups wins a prize?

Would/Could that work?

 

[Blossom]

here's a contest related question (thread hijack here)

Could you do something similar with newsletter subscriptions? I was thinking on a site you could advertise a prize based on recommended sign ups.

Yeah, this works well. The problem is that lots of people sign up with a throwaway email address they never check - you'd probably want to not allow hotmail etc.

Not sure how you would track this but every person you refer adds your email address as the person that referred them, the person with the most referred sign ups wins a prize?

Would/Could that work?

I wouldn't go down that route as you'll end up with 1 person submitting all their email addresses and those of their family, friends, animals and invisible friends, and you end up with a pretty crappy mailing list. It's too easy to abuse, and too easy for people to submit other people's addresses as their referrals without asking.

 

[Drago1986]

yeah I was thinking that would be the problem, your going to end up getting a lot of dross.

 

[scooter]

Facebook announces crackdown on fake 'Likes'

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/01/facbook_fake_likes/







.

 

[Jamie101]

I know this is a bit off topic, but I just have a question about Facebook likes.

Let's say one of my sites has 50 Facebook likes by using the "like" button. The site doesn't actually have a Facebook page if you know what I mean.

However, if I do create a Facebook page for it will it start off with 50 likes or 0 likes?

Probably a silly question, but couldn't find the answer anywhere.

 

[retired_member36]

I believe it will start with 0 likes because the like button on your site is basically liking whats on the specific url.

I had a like button on my fb page for quite some time, then created a page and it started from 0. One thing i did do on a previous site was on the like button put the url of my facebook page into the like button code, so it showed the same figure on the site / fb page (if that makes sense)

 

[Jamie101]

I believe it will start with 0 likes because the like button on your site is basically liking whats on the specific url.

I had a like button on my fb page for quite some time, then created a page and it started from 0. One thing i did do on a previous site was on the like button put the url of my facebook page into the like button code, so it showed the same figure on the site / fb page (if that makes sense)

Ah ok, thanks a lot. And yeah I know what you mean, still wondering whether it's worth making a Facebook page for one of my sites, might just do it to see what happens!

 

[murph]

Yep as said, 2 different things. FB pages and external pages both have their own likes, shares etc..

 

[devilsrefugee]

I have dealt with fake likes and followers, the client I did it for loves it, but from a SMM point of view, it is a nightmare. The client is also in a tricky situation now, because he has over 3000 likes, yet when he makes a post he gets maybe 1 or 2 likes on said post. Now he is unable to run promotions, because it basically falls upon deaf ears (bots).

I would 100% recommend against it getting that out of hand. Maybe buy 50/100 to get the ball rolling, but let them die off over time, by which time hopefully you have gained a few hundred genuine likes.