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Facebook advertising fraud?

It is a video from Veritasium published in Feb 2014.
Summary: Do not buy likes for Facebook for your business. They are fake likes who do not engage with you. This is worse than worthless.
 
rjh01 said:
It is a video from Veritasium published in Feb 2014.
Summary: Do not buy likes for Facebook for your business. They are fake likes who do not engage with you. This is worse than worthless.
Click to expand...

Astroturfing only works with old people. Younger folks see right through it.
 
Young people use media that generate detailed statistics about their subscribers, and they can see what other activities these users have on-line.

Fake users are harmful.

The damning thing is that a multi-billion medium that is supposed to generate income through advertising, has a broken model.
Imagine that television advertising was harmful to brand equity. Their profit model would be broken.

Many brands use FB to connect with fans. it's a more casual and fun way to give updates about what you're doing and making. But having a company page is free (for now) and FB isn't getting rich from it.
 
I'm not sure that I'd call it "fraud" as it seems not to be a deliberate result of the way that Facebook is set up, but an unfortunate byproduct of it that Facebook is simply taking advantage of. Exploiting a loophole, as it were. Is that technically "fraud"?
 
arthwollipot said:
I'm not sure that I'd call it "fraud" as it seems not to be a deliberate result of the way that Facebook is set up, but an unfortunate byproduct of it that Facebook is simply taking advantage of. Exploiting a loophole, as it were. Is that technically "fraud"?
Click to expand...

I also think 'fraud' is too strong a word.

Click-farms broke FB's system. Not FB itself.
 
Obviously several members did not watch the video. The idea is that these businesses pay Facebook a fee and Facebook will find users to like the business and then interact with that business. The problem is that this is not what happens. Businesses get the likes all right but they are from click farms. This is worse than worthless because posts made by that business only go out to a % of people who liked the business. If the majority of the likes are from a click farms then they will not get much interaction. So Facebook will not send that post to many more users. Get rid of the fake likes and a greater % of the users will like that post and so Facebook will send that post to more users.

These businesses are not paying some dodgy company for these fake likes, they are paying Facebook. This is all explained in the video.
 
rjh01 said:
Obviously several members did not watch the video. The idea is that these businesses pay Facebook a fee and Facebook will find users to like the business and then interact with that business. The problem is that this is not what happens. Businesses get the likes all right but they are from click farms. This is worse than worthless because posts made by that business only go out to a % of people who liked the business. If the majority of the likes are from a click farms then they will not get much interaction. So Facebook will not send that post to many more users. Get rid of the fake likes and a greater % of the users will like that post and so Facebook will send that post to more users.

These businesses are not paying some dodgy company for these fake likes, they are paying Facebook. This is all explained in the video.
Click to expand...

Yes, and the video mentions that this unintentional interaction between click farmers and facebook's real advertising service makes facebook even more money. Since the posts a business makes gets diluted by the click farmers, and thus less likely to reach actual users, the business pays facebook more to actually deliver the post.

ETA: Turns out, seeing this video is well timed. My company just started talking about paying facebook for advertising.
 
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Dr. Keith said:
Astroturfing only works with old people. Younger folks see right through it.
Click to expand...

Ahem, youngster, Dr./Mrs. f and I have been spotting and pointing out crap ads of that form and others - and showing brighter students what to look for- since way before the 'net was a gleam in Al Gore's eye. And, I was following Core Wars (though not participating ) long years before it existed for any practical purpose (like it had in the 90's +)
 
rjh01 said:
Obviously several members did not watch the video. The idea is that these businesses pay Facebook a fee and Facebook will find users to like the business and then interact with that business. The problem is that this is not what happens. Businesses get the likes all right but they are from click farms. This is worse than worthless because posts made by that business only go out to a % of people who liked the business. If the majority of the likes are from a click farms then they will not get much interaction. So Facebook will not send that post to many more users. Get rid of the fake likes and a greater % of the users will like that post and so Facebook will send that post to more users.

These businesses are not paying some dodgy company for these fake likes, they are paying Facebook. This is all explained in the video.
Click to expand...

It has also been covered in several other source over the last (at least) two-three months.
 
A friend has payed to "boost" her posts on Facebook. She has not had any real results.
 
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