When we started our Dream BIG TV Show, we were eager to get eyeballs.
We had less than a shoestring budget so marketing, for us, seemed way out of reach. When someone approached us saying they could get us a whopping 5000 Likes, for just R1000 every month, we jumped at the opportunity. We didn’t know better.
We paid our R1000. The following day we had an extra 1000 likes on our page- we were besides ourselves! Could this be! It felt too good to be true. It was!
I begun to look into who had “Liked” our page. Something struck me as odd. The names were all foreign. And they all came from Turkey!
I begun contacting the people who’d “Liked” our page- hardly any of them spoke English. The ones that could said they didn’t know who I was or what our Page was about. We’d been scammed!
I told the person we’d bought the “marketing” package from to stop the campaign immediately- We’d been duped!
We lost our R1000 on “Likes” that essentially meant nothing.
I contacted Facebook and told them what’d happened.
I also spent hours trying to delete each fake like- it was affecting the legitimate advertising we were doing on Facebook.
Here’s what we learned from that ordeal: legitimate Facebook advertising i.e. ads bought through Facebook, work. Anything else is a scam.
The point of “Likes” on your Facebook Page is not how many Likes you’ve got- it’s the engagement you get from people who like your Page. The goal is getting people who are genuinely interested in your product or service offering Liking your page and ultimately buying from you. Fake Likes will never get you that.
In short, when someone tells you then can get you an X number of Likes on Facebook- RUN!
Learn how to grow your numbers genuinely on Facebook and how to convert Likes to actual clients who’ll buy from you. Then and only then will you see the results you want.
Hannah Viviers is the Creator and Host of the Dream BIG TV Show