[via socialmediatoday.com]
Have you ever looked at a page and wondered, “How did they get so many fans?” Unfortunately, many times the fans are completely fake and have been bought from a company that provides such services. This is against the Facebook’s terms and conditions. Facebook started to crack down on fake fans and the businesses that employ them. Many businesses lost a large percentage of their fan base. Facebook claims that nearly 9% of the accounts were bogus.
Why Would a Company Want Fake Fans?
Companies have an incentive to cheat the system because generally, the larger the fan base they appear to have the more likely it is for someone to “like” their page. They appear to have more credibility and use this to cheat the system. They feel that they can gain your trust and your business by having more fans that a competing company.
How Can I Tell If They’re Faking?
There are four main ways to determine if a Facebook page has fake fans.
- Verify age and location of their fans. Use this step to see if the majority of “likes” are coming from a foreign country. Click into the box below their banner page titled “Likes.” You should see a page that shows the most popular city, the most popular week, and the most popular age group. Does the majority of their fans live in a foreign country? Does the most popular age group make sense for the page?
- How many of their fans are actually talking about them? If they have 40,000 fans but only 100 talking about them, then they are most likely using fake fans.
- Who is “liking” their posts and content? Click on the number of likes under any post that has a substantial amount of likes and comments. It will take you to a page that has profilers of the “likers”. Click on some of the links and see if they are from the same foreign country as was shown on their likes page. If this is the case, then it is a red flag.
- How long have their fans been fans? On many pages the monthly activity is visible on their timeline. If they went from 100 fans to 5000 fans over night then it is most likely they are buying fans.
When you are trying to determine if a Facebook page is faking it is important to put all the pieces together so you can get the big picture. Any one of these elements could be legit but if more than one or all of them are true then you can rest assured that the page is most likely faking.