According to a recent investigation by the BBC, the benefits of adverts and ‘likes’ on Facebook could be a lot less than many UK firms expect.
As a result, many firms in the country could be wasting valuable resources which could be better directed to greater SEO their sites.
Companies from Ellesmere Port to Portsmouth and across the world give much focus to attracting ‘likes’ on Facebook. This pulls in millions of pounds for the social networking site.
However, the investigation and expert contributors to its findings suggest many of the ‘likes’ are from fake profiles. Facebook itself confirmed a few weeks ago that up to 54 million profiles could be fake.
However, when asked about the issue, Facebook said:
“We don’t see evidence of a ‘wave of likes’ coming from fake users or ‘obsessive clickers’.”
However, internet security expert Graham Cluley said the problem was a real one. The Sophos employee also said that fake profiles could be used to spread spam and other volatile links.
Michael Tinmouth, a social media marketing consultant agrees there is an issue.
Having launched a number of ad campaigns, his clients were initially pleased with the results, but became concerned when drilling into the demographics. Tinmouth said:
“The profile names were highly suspicious, and when we dug deeper a number of these profiles were liking 3,000, 4,000, even 5,000 pages..”
The BBC created their own Facebook page, which attracted a high number of spurious ‘likes’. Other business leaders have also challenged the validity of Facebook advertising.
However, the company have cited poor marketing strategies being more to blame for the issues faced by some firms.
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