You just started your social media marketing campaign and you can’t wait to see what it can do for your business. There’s just one problem: You don’t have any likes on your Facebook page—well, unless you count your family and friends.
The first item on your social media marketing agenda is to increase your fan count. Buying Facebook likes could quickly, easily and inexpensively make your company look more credible to new visitors, but is it the right way to go? Here’s what you should know:
The Likes Aren’t Real
No matter what the company claims about their paid likes, the likes are not real. Daze Info reports that the majority of paid Facebook likes are from fake accounts made strictly for the purpose of liking pages, and are most likely based outside the US. Basically, the chances of one of these paid likes becoming an interested, loyal fan are close to zero.
It Hurts Your Visibility
Okay, let’s talk about Facebook’s algorithm for a minute. When you first post something, Facebook shows it to a small percentage of your followers. This is a test. If you receive a decent amount of engagement (likes, comments, shares) then they will know that what you posted is worthy of being viewed, so they will show it to more people.
Just to demonstrate how this affects you, pretend like you just bought yourself 15,000 business page ‘likes’ (because you only had 150 that you got on your own). When you post something, the majority of the viewers are fake, uninterested parties who will not view, like or share. As a result, you will receive little to no engagement, your post won’t gain traction, and you will wonder where your social media marketing campaign went awry.
Now imagine you only have the 150 followers, but each of them are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. You receive a lot of engagement and your post gets shown to almost all of them. Which social media marketing scenario do you think will lead to a larger ROI?
Your Credibility Goes Bye-Bye
You know those fake accounts we mentioned above? Well, according to Facebook’s terms of service, these account are not allowed, and they are always on the hunt to shut them down. So maybe you have 15,150 likes today, but tomorrow that might plummet to 150 when Facebook catches on. Just recently, Instagram removed millions of phony accounts. Justin Beiber may have been hit the hardest- he lost 3.5 million followers in less than 24 hours.
Getting caught buying Facebook likes, Instagram followers or any other friends is not part of a successful social media marketing campaign.
There Is Nothing to Gain
Let’s recap, shall we? Buying Facebook likes can dramatically minimize how many genuinely interested people see each post and it can make your current customers question your integrity. A high number of likes doesn’t affect your SEO, according to Search Engine Watch (but getting a lot of links back to your page due to your amazing content can). There is not a lot to gain from paying for likes (other than looking popular), but a whole lot to lose.
Since you should not participate in buying Facebook likes, what can you do to jumpstart your social media marketing campaign? We would love to show you. Better yet, we would love handle all the social media marketing on your behalf. Contact Zero Gravity Marketing for more details.
