I’ll be short, trust me.

I hate it when some people are trying to mislead other people into believing that big corporations are just trying to rob you of your hard earned money. Ok, I get it. Facebook really is making some big cuts into organic reach. But that doesn’t mean that they’re becoming a big mean corporation that is trying to rob all marketers.

So, is it true?

Come on — do you remember how much you had to pay for outdoor media that had far less effect a while ago? How much you paid for TV ads and you couldn’t track ROI? Facebook did you a favor. I’m not saying they’re sacred, but stop complaining and instead try to improve your social media presence.

Facebook and fake likes

Yesterday I stumbled upon this video. It’s from Veritasium and he was trying to make a point that Facebook is robbing you by spending your money intended for page promotion on fake page likes.

First of all, he is citing reports from 2012 (much has changed since then!), but I’ll focus on him misleading YOU that paying for Facebook Page likes is a waste of money. It’s not.

Misleading data

Veritasium is trying to make you believe that he spent $25 for 252 likes for a page “only an idiot would like”. In his opinion those likes weren’t relevant to his page and Facebook robbed him.

He showed no additional data so we could have a better perspective on what happened there. He didn’t mention what his ads were like and what his Facebook activity was like back then. Trust me, that information is cruical.

He mentioned that the likes were from people who liked many different pages and by that he concludes that likes were maybe from a click farm. Well I guess he isn’t aware of the fact that some people like tons of pages because they want to enter every sweepstake on the planet OR they just don’t know how to use Facebook correctly (by the way — is there even a correct way of using Facebook?). But that doesn’t mean Facebook is robbing people.

And besides — he made an irrelevant page about cats. Did he really think he will get likes from relevant people? Relevant people didn’t care so Facebook probably showed his ads to people who like other silly pages.

What can you do to get relevant Facebook Page likes?

Well you can do lots of things and I promise you’ll get a lot of likes from genuine people.

• Write good copy. Explain what you offer and don’t mislead people.
• Use appealing images. Don’t use stock photos. People can spot them miles away and the effect in most cases is the exact opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish.
• Improve your Facebook activity. Facebook activity will be the first thing users interested in your page will notice. Offer them great content and value.
• Use targeting. Targeting is cruical for gathering relevant likes. Target interests, hobbies, etc., not only gender and age.
• Use Custom Audiences and engage with your email/phone list. Now THOSE are some genuine likes.
• Etc. Etc. Just don’t make an irellevant Facebook Page and boring ads like he probably did.

Conclusion: Using Facebook smart will get you far ahead of your competition. And don’t believe everything you hear about how Facebook is robbing you. You know better, right?