Should I Buy Facebook Likes?

So, you have set up your Facebook business page, provided a great cover and profile picture and are now posting interesting and engaging content but right at the top of your page it says "27 likes". You think to yourself: "maybe I should spend a few quid so I get 1000 likes and that will give a better impression?" STOP RIGHT THERE AND READ THIS FIRST

What happens when you buy Facebook likes?

Typically purchases of Facebook likes are delivered by companies operating in East Asia, India and Eastern Europe. They are "click farms" where operators have created thousands of bogus Facebook accounts which, to order, will like your page. These accounts are unengaged and irrelevant to your business.

How do my posts appear in people's News Feed?

You have carefully crafted your post and scheduled it to launch at what you feel is peak time for your interested users (giving you a chance to check it before it goes live). The post goes live and everyone who likes your page gets to see it straight away, right? Wrong, Facebook initially selects a fraction of your followers to see the post and waits to see if anyone engages by liking, sharing or commenting. If anyone does engage a few more people will see the post in their news feed and slowly views are ratcheted up.

Do people who don't already like my page get to see my posts?

When someone engages with your post, particularly if it is already getting many likes, and comments it may appear in the News Feed of the followers friend e.g. "Peter Social commented on a link that Anyco Ltd shared". That friend may then follow the link, view the photo and even go through to your page and like it because they found the content interesting and relevant. If your post is shared by a follower it may appear in their friend’s News Feeds but this will depend on two factors; how engaging the post is and the amount of interaction your follower has had with specific friends.

I now have 10,182 likes, why are my page insights so low? (I bought 10,000 likes last week)

When your post is first issued if fake (bought) likes make up a huge proportion of your likes the probability is that the post will first be shown to bogus accounts in, say, The Philippines. Unsurprisingly none of these bogus accounts like, comment on, or share your post and it is therefore deemed un-engaging and goes no further despite you spending all day crafting it a carefully planning the launch.

Conclusion

Buying Facebook likes is a bad idea. It will take a lot and time and effort to develop a genuine Facebook following. There are no shortcuts and no substitute for interesting and engaging content. Buying your likes will only make building a genuine, useful, following more difficult.

There are parallels with the huge changes in Search Engine Optimisation after Google’s "Panda' and "Penguin"" updates. The shortcuts to high rankings that were mostly achieved through back links from bogus "Internet Directories" no longer have any merit and indeed often have a detrimental effect on your ranking that is difficult to recover from. Interesting, relevant and well-structured content genuinely shared by reputable websites is now the key.

DISCLAIMER: This article is based on observation and research rather than any inside knowledge of the "secret algorithm" behind the Facebook News Feed