If you aren’t already aware of Facebook’s fake accounts resulting in fake likes and a disengaged audience then you should start by watching this video by Derek Muller on Facebook Fraud. The video highlights where your clicks are actually coming from and that Facebook advertising is in fact a waste of time as your campaigns aren’t reaching the right people.

Ad Campaigns

There are two ways to gain likes through Facebook ads. The first is through buying likes, spending $70 for 1000 likes that come from click farms in developing countries such as India, Egypt, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Philippians or Serilanka. The click farms get paid $1 per 1000 likes.

The second option is to pay for Facebook’s ad campaigns to advertise your page across Facebook. Here you are able to choose the location where you want your ads to be targeted, for instance America, United Kingdom or Australia.

Both options resulted in the same outcome, an increase in Facebook likes on your page almost instantly and although your audience drastically increased overnight, your audience engagement had dropped dramatically.

Fake Accounts

The reason that your audience has both increased and disengaged is that your likes were coming from the same place: the click farms, even though you targeted other countries. The reason that Facebook couldn’t detect the real accounts from the fake was actually due to all the fake accounts liking numerous other pages that they weren’t paid to like, making them seem like everyday users.

The likes you were getting were also coming from suspicious accounts with people pretending to be famous celebrities or sports stars. Facebook ended up deleting 83,000,000 fake accounts and real celebrities saw a significant drop off on their accounts.

How to Avoid Fake Likes

Even though your page could look really popular with lots of fake likes, your audience has less than 2% engagement in your posts, which is useless. You want your posts to reach an audience who is interested in your product and to get them engaged.

As a result you can’t escape fake likes with Facebook’s advertising campaigns, and it’s simply a waste of money and time as your fake likers are getting nothing out of your page or content. True real likes can only be obtained the old traditional way with people who have had a good experience or have had contact with your product or service either personally or through positive word of mouth to friends and family.