I am in charge of my company’s social media sites and we are relatively new within the online world. I came across a site where you can buy Facebook page likes. Do you think this is worth the time or effort? And if we decide to go through the purchase, how do you think this will affect the business, if at all. The price is cheap for people to like the page I just wanted to see if it would even be worth doing, and what type of outcomes it would have for our online traffic.

Hey @matthewoneill

I agree with  @roryramsden; besides, there are plenty of golden threads in this networking club that helps you go from a new company into an engaging community.

Buying ‘Likes’ is like purchasing cardboard people for a party that no one showed up for.

@thatsocialdude That is an epic analogy lol. Buying Facebook likes is like buying a sandwich that only comes with the buns. For me there is no sense of pride or achievement if you pay for people to Like your page. Knowing my company/produt and my personality (on social media) is what’s attracting people gives me a sense of accomplishment! Not like in World of Warcraft where you get something new and it’s a false sense of accomplishment cause you really havn’t acquired anything in any world that matters. A real sense of accomplishment. Knowing you are an asset to a company or a brand is very self fulfilling. .. In my opinion and experience at least .. @matthewoneill

kudos to what everyone is saying here

you will get more engagement from 10 people that have liked your site organically then from 1000 people that have been “bought”.

try not to get too caught up with your facebook “like” figure.  everyone knows what its like to have a low figure, but dont feel compelled to abnormally boost it so visitors think its a jumpin place.

i wrote a blog post some days ago about where to advertise your facebook page.  have a read, it should give you some tips in getting your details in front of your customers.

top 10 places to advertise your facebook page

I will echo what everyone else said about not buying likes with an example from one of my clients. 

Although I repeatedly told her not to buy likes, she insisted that her business wouldn’t look legitimate unless she had over 1,000 likes on her page. 

Prior to the purchase, she had 600 fans and about 150 (25%) were actively engaged (liking, commenting, sharing). 

After the purchase, she had about 1,500 likes, but still only had 150 engaged users since most of the purchased likes were from Eastern Europe and her business is 95% local to the Denver Metro area. Now she only has about 10% of her total fans engaged. 

Since Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm takes into account the % engagement, her qualified likes (600) and her engaged fans (150) now are less likely to see her posts on their walls. 

Her likes, comments and shares decreased by about 50% after she purchased the likes and now it’s a long road to recovery because she has to find a way to re-engage people and get more of them actively using and commenting on her page. 
One other thing to note is that Facebook’s analytics become less useful when you buy likes. The demographics and other info can be very useful when creating an advertisement or understanding your audience and purchasing likes skews this. 

that’s a very strong point @lindsayhunt

Hi @matthewoneill I will not repeat everything that has been said in this important post. I think the point is clear.  Just to let a thought: What are the objectives of a company for being part of Social Media? Things are done to obtain a result, so what would be the results of having a community of people who are not interested at all in the products or services offered by your company. It would be pointless if done it this way.

Good luck and for sure after reading all these opinions you will make the right decision. 

@alremetch, I think it depends on where they’re advertising the page with the charity donation and how they’re attracting people to the page.

There’s nothing wrong with giving an incentive for people to like your page. Some do it in the form of a coupon, free eBook, etc. I’ve found that a Facebook Ad coupled with an incentive to like the page works well for attracting new fans. 

The problem with buying likes is that you’re almost always purchasing unqualified likes from dummy accounts, often in foreign countries. With the donation to charity, you’re still attracting real people who have a much better chance of engaging with your content. 

Ultimately, I think people (like my client) are impatient and want shortcuts without spending any time. Building your Facebook page (or any social media presence) takes time and you’ll get much more out of it in the long run if you take the time to build your page the right way. 

There are ways to speed up growth with advertising or contests + advertising, but to me it doesn’t matter how many fans a page has if the fans are engaged. Some pages with 1,000+ likes may have infrequent posts and others with 300 may have people commenting, sharing and engaging. I always visit the wall to see the types of posts and interactions there before liking a page. 

If you’re interested, I created video blog post about how to increase your Facebook Likes since many of my clients were asking about it!

Here’s a good article on growing your fan base virally.

http://socialmediatoday.com/fixcourse/421283/how-virally-grow-your-facebook-fan-page

I have to agree with most the people on here.Buying facebook like from anywhere other than actual advertising is a no no.They really are fake profile or even if you do find a one with real users you are unlikely to ever get interaction from them. They will be the sort of person that like any and every page and never interacts.You might be new to the facbook game but hard work and genuine fans will pay off a lot better.Just remember if a real fan comes across your page and it has 1000′s of fans and no one is interacting with your posts/content they will wounder why or think something is wrong and possibly not participate or like your page themselves 

If you are working on a project where client specifically want to see quantity of fans not the quality of engagement, go for it. I have already faced  these kind of situations where success metrics is only no of likes.

Explain your clients what are the pros and cons of buying likes, be transparent to them and do what business sense demands best for the situation.

Yes @gabriel exactly what I was trying to say. Tuning down a client is the last option, few agencies strictly follow their ethical guidelines for business promotion and they simply do not care what client is paying for, but certainly their numbers are meager.