How Fake Likes On Facebook Are An Industry

Three months ago I created a Facebook page for a personal blog. It intrigued me when the page managed to score some 200 likes, without any content being uploaded. Until recently there was no content uploaded or any post shared while I kept a constant check on the page. And it seemed fishy for the obvious reasons.

I immediately googled “Fake Facebook Likes”. Google displayed at least 15 websites and applications using which I can gather enough fake Facebook likes to consider my post popular. After a little more research I realised it is a big bloody market out there that digs deep into the pockets of people who yearn for likes instead of honest feedback and organic reach.

Before moving further, let’s be very clear paid promotions are no bad but those are nowhere associated with the Fake Likes scheme. Paid promotions are done by targeting segments that suit your business page in whichever way and that you keep a check on the relevance score too so that you can track and analyse the same because even your little bucks count.

Well, I managed to receive these Fake likes without shelling a buck because those were ideally dummy accounts. Fake accounts are created and to keep them active, the account handler who is a person sitting in some third world country, likes random pages so Facebook engine does not detect any malpractice or inactivity. Because if it does the account will be disabled.

Even if Facebook detects and aborts the activities of such accounts, it cannot stop the practice of fake likes altogether because creating new fake accounts is just as easy. The new fake accounts created are sometimes stolen identities of people availing such services and now, we are living in the times where bots visit your websites, even spam your website through fake views, so getting those fake likes sound no big deal.

With only display pictures and false personal information on the profile, it gets extremely difficult to track the reach of a post when one receives likes from such profiles which arguably puts digital marketing in question too and it’s a major setback for the propositions of social media and networking.

There are a number of ways one can boost their posts, one can join groups like Like4Likes or pay up on one of the many websites that manages a number of such Facebook accounts. I have heard stories of warehouses in Indonesia where a huge number of individuals are settled in front of personal computers, logged in on Facebook accounts and are getting paid to like pages throughout the day.

Groups like Like4Likes work a bit differently. Once you join them, all you have to do is post your content on the group so everybody else can boost these posts by liking them, similarly when they post content you have to like them back. This sort of obligation is unnecessary and unwanted if you wish to run a legit blog or website because no real feedback or suggestion is ever received even that never made your blog or website actually count.

Instead of restraining from these practices, people promote such businesses and fund to turn the world’s biggest social network into something so worthless where even the valuable content seems lost.

For a little money, you can hire an army of spammers that will flood your page with unwanted likes. Most of these borrowed likes eventually evaporate and do no good to a business but that’s happening and this is how they are forming an industry. And they are making money!

One day your post has 500 likes, the next day it drops down to 50, because about 90% of them bought by you were fake and then, eventually you start struggling to get even 10, forget the number of views and engagement on the post. The Fake Like system does not allow you to gauge the true reach of your posts instead proliferates the system of spams.

The number of customers that pay for likes is huge. And the competition in this market is intense.

With a number of websites offering such services and much more, the price stays forever low, and well, the service is easily accessible. But the future for them doesn’t seem promising (when was it?) and if you are trying this drill, do pull it away before it eats away your business even if that comes at the cost of your Facebook business page, least to say.

Heard of the SEO term? Better get your strategies right because we’re sure that even Facebook won’t be liking it at all and must be getting ready to fight it.