Hi  @vadimpolyanskiy,
I have a client which opted to do this after I recommended not to. It was a new page at the time and he just wanted to add fans so that when his customers visited the page they would think he had a lot of followers. Not sure the company he used but he bought 500 likes. The company promised that the users where people interested in his niche (motorcycle gear) so they should be an engaging audience.
That is not the case. Most of the “likes” are just dummy accounts which never participate. Remember, it’s not about how many fans you have, it’s about the the engagement you have with fans. 
Adding dummy fans to your page will only end up hurting your page’s performance.

@vadimpolyanskiy @jamesalonso Thats right James it is not the number of fans that you have rather how many of your fan base are you connecting with.

Companies/individuals that offer this service are on the most part dis-reputable. I liken this to the buying links to game Google.

@vadimpolyanskiy first of all, thanks for giving us all chance to share our thoughts on this. Now to your question: i am agree to most of here: They all probably do it by using fake ids even if they claim it to be real people i am not ready to accept they are real. yes, you can obviously grow to 1000s but that takes time and not a midnight task. However only exception case of getting 1000 likes in couple days is where you create page and invite all your friends and mates to like it. Then they will invite their friends to like it. This way you might have a chance, but it is in rare case.Agree to  @jamesalonso about 1000 accounts in google and fb

Hi guys,

Just following this thread re adding Fans.  I’ve been caught by this recently.  I was contacted by a company LIKE MY BUSINESS who were offering to create a Business Facebook page for me and allocate 1000 fans (adding 250 at a time) that were related to my business.  I asked how they could do that and they said that Facebook were constantly gathering information from their users and they were one of three companies who were able to buy lists from FB of targeted interest groups.  After doing a bit of research on LMB and knowing that I didn’t have the skills (then) or time to create a page, I signed up ….and seriously wish I hadn’t!  It is still ongoing hassle ….and no page yet.  Other traders who have used them have now told me that the so called FANS took ages to add and then were from countries such as China and Africa together with many fakes.  I guess the learning is “if in doubt – don’t”.  Hope that wasn’t too much of a rant………

I agree with Abigail, Facebook Targeted ads can get you likes from real people who are interested in your services or products. Though they are expensive but buying these ads are worth the price you pay. Another way to get likes is to add engaging applications on your page. “Engaging” is the key here. Running contests or promotions can also get likes for your page.

Listen my dude @Scott Ayres…He knows his stuff!

Thanks, everyone. Your responses make me feel better about only having a handful of “likes”. I do try to engage people and provide information they can use. I hope this will end up helping my business become more popular.

Thank you @vadimpolyanskiy for asking this question – I have learned a lot from everyone’s responses.

great info from everyone. it’s hard, sometimes, for smaller, newer pages to feel like they’re being successful with a small # of likes. everyone wants tons of “likes” … like today! i try to tell myself (and clients) that it’s better to have 500 “true” likes that really care and want to follow your page than 5,000 fakes ones. of course, the best is 5,000 true likes! setting goals for likes is a great discipline, and encourages testing and reviewing insights along the way for post timing, effectiveness etc. 

What a great forum!  I can’t tell you how nice it is to hear so many of you say “it’s about engagement, not number of fans.”  Unfortunately, this is not yet an easy sell when establishing client expectations, and it is still a rare few that are willing to accept a high ratio of engagement over a high number of fans.

Facebook Advertising is effective, as are contests.  I’ve had success with both, but they were amplified with email campaigns.  Never underestimate the power of a strong call to action in an e-blast.  :)  Additionally, if you can get reputable bloggers to promote your latest Facebook campaign, you will be able to spread your reach and make valuable contacts for the future.  With that in mind, you may want to meet and greet some of the folks in the Blogging club on this site!

Thanks, Louis @louisteoh. We just started our page at the end of 2011 and never considered “buying” likes. Our plan is what you stated above. We’re excited about each new like (I think we have a whopping 238 now) we get and hope to learn what engages the people the most. Thanks for the tip on using graphics/pictorial quotes with our own comments.
Laura

Lot of great thanks for all for this conversation! Especially thanks to @kl200,  @abigailgorton, @scottayres! Scott absolutely right understood my question. I don’t want to buy fans. I bought my first 30 fans to name my fan page. Other fans (now approx 1100) comes from ads (50%) and naturally by liking my content.
And I absolutelly agree with advices of Kyle (@kl2000) about joining into the niche groups. Most engaged fans I have from groups, where I take a part in conversations. What is interesting: I start my Facebook page about Social Media for Business theme in Russian/Ukrainian segment. I’ve joined in relevant groups and start to ask and aswer for others. Some people ask the questions, and I don’t know the answer. I google this question and answer first, before others… ))) Now some people in theese gropus mean that I am GURU )))) fun ))) And theese fans are the most active and loyal on my fan page.

But I ask my topic question for next reason: some SMM agencies lists in priceы for exaple: 1000 fans for $$$ bukcs. And I thought, how many fans should I have to monetise my fan base? 10k ? 100k? How big should be my fan page for posting advertising status and take for example 1000 likes guarantee?

Now, I know. This is not my way I don’t want to monetise this way my Facebook. I will grow my loyal fan base. I will post relevant affiliate links (RELEVANT!) and may be, build my study course and give a consultation for money.. Later ))))
Thanks for all for your opinions.

P.S. Excuse me for my English. It is not a perfect and sometimes some words may be wrong, but I hope you understand what I mean.

P.P.S. Happy Valentines Day!!!!!

How we went from 0-54K fans in a little over a year:

1. Fan Engagement

That’s it. All you need to do is think that organic growth is the best for your page. I never paid for one single like. I made it to about 650 fans initially with engagement about once or twice a week, but as soon as I started responding to EVERY post, and adding good content several times a day, or fan base just exploded. Now granted Facebook has made some changes to the newsfeed, but this method still works…

You just want to keep in mind that it really is not the size of a page that matters because personally if I go to a page that has 200K fans and no engagement I do not stick around, and if I go to a page that has 600 likes and TONS of comments and good dialogue, I stick around and get active…

So forget size…don’t even have that on your mind…focus on taking care of the people who have already liked you for whatever reason they did…and in doing that, they will want to share the experience with their friends and BOOM…growth happens 100% organically!

Hope this helps a litte!

as a p.s., i worked on a page for a client that had 1,500 likes at the beginning of 2011. targeted facebook ads worked great for growing our fan base – and we really targeted. we also delivered on our promise – so if our facebook ad said “I Only Quilt on Days That End in “Y”!” click Like if you agree – when they went to our page, we had a ton of content that appealed to those who liked quilting. we also had an email list and sent a few dedicated blasts simply with the request to “like” our page. of course, we kept our fb logo at top of every email that went out. in less than a year we were at 50k likes – with great engagement as well. so, did we “pay” for likes via ads? yes, we certainly did thru ads, but that kick start also helped us grow organic likes at a much quicker pace too. in the end, it all depends on your strategy and what you’re trying to do. one size, one approach most certainly does not fit all.   this has been a great thread.

Interesting article

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2012/feb/13/twitter-facebook-apps-scams

@abigailgorton Forgive the marketing  newbie here, but could you explicitly explain how one “1) know you niche. Launch your page within it and keep your focus.”

Our new company is in the tutoring industry, where, on FB do we “launch your page within……a niche.”

@barbc Hi Barb, I do not know much about where you are, but let me do a hypothetical discussion.

You are a tutoring company. Hypothetically, your niche is

1) math/science (as opposed to language arts or music or sports…)
2) You service the metro Dallas area (as opposed to the whole of Texas or anywhere else on earth)
3) You focus on high school students (as opposed to elementary / middle / college)
4) You are marketing to the parents (rather than the kids)

So, you launch a page. You write snappy one-liners about the challenges of raising kids within the focus of this niche. You write longer blog posts around the topic of tutoring. See this example from a friend of mine running a tutoring agency in NYC. FB page: https://www.facebook.com/MosaicTutoring  Blog: http://www.mosaictutoring.com/

I also fully recognize that this is not the easiest business to get people to engage in,  so once you have your page up and running I would fully recommend targeted ads. Remembering that you are targeting the parents of teens, not the teens themselves. You might want to target parents who mention homework in their posts (when they are letting off steam to their friends) Or college apps or…. whatever is right for your REAL demographic. And parents who are liking your competitors pages…

This was very helpful – thanks to everyone that posted.I was just asked to provide my opinion on this service as a potential traffic source. I have pretty limited knowledge / expertise in social media but my first instinct was – “yuck, sounds like link buying!”Then I was second guessing myself – “what do I know, maybe I’m being naive and this is how it’s done”.Can I just tell you all what a relief it is to have a place – a community to go to – where I know I can get it straight! The real experts are hanging out here and I’m privileged to be a part of it!

If you buy fans and “likes” all you are doing is getting bogus followers. If you really want quality leads and “likes” try Facebook Promoted posts. We tried this a few weeks ago and we are liking the results. We always try programs on our page before we recommend to our clients.
Here is a blog detailing our experience: http://www.websuccessteam.com/WSTblog/2012/08/facebook-promotional-posts-case-study/

What we’ve found most effective:
1. Inviting friends
2. Facebook advertising – you can start very inexpensively and build a base quite quickly – on one site we spent less than $25 a week and brought in over 400 new fans in a single month as friends told friends (and so on…
3. Posting page on like-minded pages where you’re active and engaged (in other words, NOT just using them) and letting folks know there’s info there, too. In example, for https://www.facebook.com/PoolandBilliard we’ll post on other sites i.e. cuemakers and table makers if there’s an item of interest those fans would also like to see. That way it’s actually a benefit to the page where you’re posting.
4. Link exchanges, depending on where and who you’re cross-liking, CAN be okay, but only if they genuinely have interest in you; otherwise it’s a waste of your time if they won’t engage. Happy fan hunting!

Hi people…

I have learned a lot from everyone’s responses…

Regards from Costa Rica…

Néstor Alfaro…

i think the fakes are easy to spot, mostly indian russian names, recent  account creation etc.