Facebook page likes. The more the better right?! Not always the case.

A higher channel body count definitely gives your business more credibility, but the most important thing is to establish quality over quantity. It is much more beneficial to have 1000 fans who are passionate about your brand and love to interact with you, than 10,000 fans who rarely interact who are unlikely to convert to real-life customers (i.e if you’re a restaurant in Brisbane and 1/3 of your likers are based in India!).

There is a difference between “buying likes” and paying to promote your page.

BUYING LIKES:

You have probably had emails or private messages offering you 10,000 new likes for only $29! This is what is referred to as “buying likes”. DONT DO IT – RUN FOR THE HILLS! If the promise actually comes through (a lot of the time it won’t) and your page likes do increase, these likes will likely be linked to fake accounts, the majority of which will be hosted overseas. These are not real people, let alone people who care about your brand. “But what if…” I hear you question “What if I just use this to get the ball rolling and I will grow my real database on top of this, with all of that extra credibility from having a high fan count!?”. In hindsight, that sounds like a great idea, but let’s discuss what effects that will have on your Facebook presence:

1. Any analytics will be skewed, vital data that you require to better know your audience will not be available to you due to the number of purchased likes. For example, if you want to know what percentage of your fans are female or what time they are most likely to be online.
2. Your content will reach fewer of your “real” people. Posts only organically reach around 12% of your fan base – if this 12% is populated by fake likes, there’s minimal chance of a real potential customer seeing your content!
3. If you are familiar with Facebook algorithms, you will be aware that the more engaging you are on the regular, the more likely your future content is to gain a wider organic reach. If the majority of your fans are not interacting with you (which they won’t be if you’ve purchased them), your future reach will be hindered.
4. It is a lengthy process to get rid of these likes once you have purchased them and combined them with any “real” likers (an article for another day).

So, what’s the alternative? Assigning a budget to expand your community is still important, but let’s look at doing it the right way – with

PAID ADVERTISING:

Facebook advertising is a highly developed and very efficient medium when used correctly. To increase your page likes, you will want to run a “promote your page” advert. The most important thing to get your head around when utilising Facebook advertising is targeting. This is where your “quality” likes are sourced.

By effectively targeting your ideal audience you:

• Minimise costs by not advertising to those unlikely to interact with your brand
• Create the ideal audience for your brand
• Increase likeliness of user interaction
• Can create adverts especially for your target (eg. a 39-year-old woman looking for somewhere to host her 40th birthday party)
• Enable you to make use of future tools like creating a “lookalike audience”

Although this method may take a little longer than buying likes from unknown sources, you can be assured that your fan base is 100% genuine and likely to convert to customers. Much more promising!

For advice on Facebook advertising please contact info@cliquesocial.com.au