Facebook Clamps Down on Fake "Likes" to Protect Businesses

The social network is tackling scammers who seek to produce fake Likes.

Facebook is tightening its security rules and using machine learning to spot suspicious behavior in a bid to clamp down on "Like" scams that hurt businesses through fraudulent activity.

The social network explained that businesses are being duped into purchasing Likes from companies that guarantee a certain number in order to help a business build up its brand awareness. But many of the Likes are fake, and the company providing them is committing fraud.

By guaranteeing Likes to a client company, these scammers generate fake Likes directed at a company's page and then charge the client for the service.

But given that these Likes are not from genuine users, the benefits they provide are negligible, thereby effectively defrauding the client company.

Businesses generally chase page Likes in order for their posts to appear on the pages of users who did the liking. However, the use of fake profiles to generate false Likes erodes the effectiveness of this awareness-building tactic.

In a website post, Matt Jones, site integrity engineer at Facebook, explains that such scams are effective only when they are scalable and that the company is taking measures to prevent them.

"To make it harder for these scams to be profitable, our abuse-fighting team builds and constantly updates a combination of automated and manual systems that help us catch suspicious activity at various points of interaction on the site, including registration, friending, liking, and messaging," he says.

Jones also says that Facebook is using more sophisticated tools and has contributed some of its spam-fighting technology to academics in a bid to help companies combat similar problems with scammers.

"We want to help block spam no matter where it spreads," he says.

While Facebook explores the use of machine learning and other technologies to combat scammers, Jones also says that the company will use legal judgments against fraudulent companies.

Facebook will also take action to stifle scammer operations by slowing their account activity if unusually high volumes of Likes are detected.

Jones encourages businesses to be vigilant about fraudulent activity and to use Facebook to drive in-store sales or boost app downloads rather than rely on third-parties to generate page Likes.

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It's Not All About "Likes"

There are many metrics in the market to measure a campaign:‘Likes, shares, comments, followers, favorites, retweets, you name it. These are the standard metrics that marketers embrace to justify their marketing campaigns.

The ‘Like’ Argument

In a recent study done by Association of National Advertisers (ANA) 2014 Social Content Development Survey (see image courtesy of eMarketer.com), these are the metrics used by marketers to measure the effectiveness of their social media campaigns. A whopping 89% measure effectiveness based on ‘Likes’ and only 24% on sales conversion.

Hang on; shouldn’t it be ‘Likes’ and HOW that translates to sales? The disparity in the statistics above shows a stark contrast.  Marketers are relying on vanity metrics instead of focusing on the entire conversion process. 

Why is this so?

Let’s take a step back.

A ‘Like’ is essentially a sticker of affirmation that someone is interested in your brand or that you have somethingthat appeals to them. That doesn’t mean they will actually buy your product, advocate and support your initiatives, nor do anything further beyond clicking the ‘Like’ button.

SO WHAT REALLY ARE ‘LIKES’?  Something not quite marketing, not quite advertising, not quite branding and not quite PR.  In a world where points win prizes, what is the prize for a ‘Like’? Facebook’s media currency of choice certainly has value - $100bn worth.

Bringing this back to the ‘Likes’ and the sales conversion process: as a marketer, what are your priorities when your company (or product) posts a status update on any of the social networks? Are you generating ‘white noise’, potentially causing brand friction, pollution or even confusion?

There are just too many companies out there looking for ‘Likes’ because as one client said, “Many ‘Likes’ is cool! It seems as though we are the market leader.”  As social media consultants, whilst we like to see big numbers of ‘clicks’, ‘tweets’, ‘Likes’, ‘pins’ , we are more concerned about metrics that count, such as engagement rate, conversion rate, reach and impression, frequency, PR and increased traffic in-store or online.

Unless that ‘Like’ is attributable (directly or indirectly) to your bottom line, having a million followers doesn’t matter.  I’d rather have only 500 active fans that are engaged and conversing, sharing their thoughts, giving feedback (both positive and negative), than 50,000 disengaged clones.  These influencers are your brand ambassadors, focus group, target audience and biggest critics.  They are the ones who will make the conversion happen, and drive others to your product and ultimately to sales.

The message, as always, is that quality trumps quantity.  Having many low-quality ‘Likes’ does not necessarily bring any business value.  They are vanity metrics that do not increase your revenue.  So whilst ‘Likes’ are nice, your social media strategy should focus on getting advocates, building rapport, and then seeing ‘Likes’ translate to sales. Now that is a measurement to reckon with!

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Get More Facebook Likes for Your Business Page with These 4 Tips

Are you not getting the likes and traffic to your Facebook Page that you are looking for? Creating an effective business page is the easy part, but getting people to become a fan of it is an entirely different process. Here are several ways you can transform your page into a successful one.

·         Complete the Profile

Create a detailed profile that tells your audience who you are, what your company does, and any other additional details you want readers to know. If you have a website or other social media accounts, add these in your profile. Also, select a category that best describes your business in order to make it easier for viewers to find you.

·         Use a Simple Cover Image

The first thing people will see on your Facebook page is your cover image, so using the right graphic is important. Keep it clean, simple, and with very little text. Try to only include the logo and/or company’s name, as well as one or two photos. The right image will make it easy for your audience to remember your brand.

·         Post Information Fans will Find Useful

As tempting as it may be, try to refrain from posting status updates entirely related to product promotions. Although this is perfectly acceptable on occasion, and even appreciated by customers who want to know about a new sale, many readers will begin tuning out your page. Post links to articles or interesting information that your audience will be able to use.

·         Look for Facebook Apps

There are tons of apps out there that will help businesses make the most of their Facebook pages. For example, if your company has a newsletter, there’s a Facebook app that will allow your audience to sign up for it without leaving the Facebook page. Have fun with it and look for apps that your target demographic could use.

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8 Ways to Increase Engagement of Facebook Posts

Brands have always accepted Facebook as a key marketing tool to generate engagement and branding. The question is whether Facebook creates more engagement, visibility, traffic and experience than other tools. Searching for an answer to this for some time leads to understanding how the different attributes of Facebook posts have an impact on the number of “likes”, comments and “shares” that a post gets.

How to Increase the Number of Likes in Facebook Posts

Below, I identify 8 ways to increase the number of “likes” a post receives:

1. Focus. Stay up to date. I’m talking about messages that relate to holidays (Christmas), festivals, gigs, world issues, relevant events, anything related with current affairs. Perhaps they won’t be directly related to the product’s or company’s essence but they will be perceived as something more personal and, hence, better accepted (more so, even, than promotions.)

2. Express yourself through photos. Every picture tells a story. A photograph communicates something personal in a fast, easy way. You also have to make an effort to match a suitable text to the picture. Images from your company’s product catalogue generate greater engagement than other types of content.

3. Share what we love. Sharing success stories and also failures, achievements, prizes, apologies or thanks make you more human, accessible and familiar to your community. Many will also identify with the brand. When they “like” a post, they’re telling their network of friends why they identify with the brand.

4. Branding. Don’t hesitate to promote the brand and its products. When your customer visits your Facebook page, they should leave with a good impression of your brand and products/services. The public will visit the walls of the brands they’re interested in.

5. Humour rocks. Laugh and everyone will laugh with you. We all enjoy a laugh. Make your posts fun as funny posts get many “likes” and will be shared a lot. For instance, funny pictures. Being funny is an art.

6. Humanise the brand. Inject emotion to it. Brand communication starts by using the “human” side of social media. The community loves messages that turn a wall into a living object that expresses human emotions in the form of videos, images, or real-time personal statuses, for instance. Facebook is a communication platform rather than a production channel. Shar0ing posts that contain emotions helps connecting with the community. In turn, they share these emotions with their network.

7. Educate and equip. Create content that is informative. Brands sharing content that is useful to their audience get greater exposure and engagement –more “likes”–, especially in the case of information designed to improve and enrich the brand’s fans. This education could include the company’s history, the product creation process or the state of the market, for instance. When fans interact with this type of content, they’re creating educational content which is shared in their network.

8. Ask to be “liked”. Ask and you will receive. It’s simple. If you ask to be liked, like for instance Veuve Cliquot does in their posts, you’ll get more “likes”. Ask in a polite, fun way, and don’t overdo it; otherwise, the cure may be worse than the disease!

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How to win Likes and alienate people: The perils of a social-media strategy

A number of commentators on the story mentioned the behaviour of brands on social networks too — and it occurred to me that it's pretty easy to apply some pop-psychology there, too.

What is the value of a Facebook Like?

Big brands are behaving even more like people than ever before, especially when it comes to social media — having their own profile pages and wanting to be friends. As a result, we're suffering a mass outbreak of corporate vanity and narcissism.

Big businesses are as obsessed with collecting friends and adding Likes as the most insecure teenagers. And like socially awkward teens, once they've got someone's attention, they don't always know what to do next: how companies respond to a Like can vary wildly, from mad over-sharing that fills your timeline with adverts, through to a complete snub.

As a result, it can often seem that businesses are simply focused on getting as many Likes as possible — the 'look how popular I am!' approach — and see that as a successful social media strategy.

What further complicates the situation is that the value of a Like is unclear. There are now 2.7bn likes and comments made a day across Facebook, which means that getting a thumbs-up may not be the ringing endorsement it once was. This makes it harder for brands to know how real that affection is, and how to respond (indeed, Rory Cellan-Jones has done some interesting stories for the BBC on the value to a business of gaining Likes for its Facebook page).

And just last week, Facebook announced plans to delete phoney Likes — ones that are determined to have been gained by malware, compromised accounts, deceived users, or Likes purchased in bulk. Facebook said its plan to remove this distortion is likely to affect around one percent of Likes on any particular page. 

Getting closer to customers through social media makes a lot of sense for all sorts of brands, and doing it well can bring big dividends. Big brands need to think more deeply about how and why they should connect with their customers online if we are really going to like them.

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Finding The 'Likes' In Social Media Investments: Measuring ROI Of Social Media Top Challenge For Marketing And Ad Execs

MENLO PARK, Calif., July 11, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- What's the value of a tweet or Facebook "like"? That's a key question for many marketing executives, according to a new survey from The Creative Group. Four in 10 (40 percent) advertising and marketing executives interviewed said their greatest stumbling block when it comes to social media is measuring the success of their efforts. Finding knowledgeable staff to execute social media programs is problematic for 19 percent of respondents.

The national survey was developed by The Creative Group, a specialized staffing service for interactive, design, marketing, advertising and public relations professionals, and conducted by an independent research firm.

Advertising and marketing executives were asked, "When it comes to implementing social media initiatives, which of the following would you consider to be the greatest challenge for your agency/firm?" Their responses:

         Measuring or defining return on investment                40%
Finding knowledgeable staff to execute social media tasks 19%

         Gaining executive support for social media initiatives    10%
Finding budget for social media initiatives               13%
         Other                                                     2%

                                                                   101
Nothing/no challenges                                     13%
         Don't know/no answer                                      4%
%*
         *Responses do not total 100 percent due to rounding

"The social media landscape is changing constantly, making it difficult for companies to not only determine which channels to focus on but also how to effectively measure the impact of their efforts," said Donna Farrugia, executive director of The Creative Group.

Farrugia noted that finding the right people to plan, execute and monitor social media programs has its own set of challenges. "Companies want people who are passionate about using social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest, and who recognize and can take advantage of business applications for these channels."

About the SurveyThe national study was developed by The Creative Group and conducted by an independent research firm. It is based on more than 500 telephone interviews -- approximately 375 with marketing executives randomly selected from companies with 100 or more employees and 125 with advertising executives randomly selected from agencies with 20 or more employees.

About The Creative GroupThe Creative Group specializes in placing a range of highly skilled interactive, design, marketing, advertising and public relations professionals with a variety of firms on a project and full-time basis. More information, including online job-hunting services, candidate portfolios and The Creative Group's award-winning career magazine, can be found at www.creativegroup.com .

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