Among the things that all social media platforms admit, the arms race between real and fake accounts and the fighting that goes on between moderators and perpetrators is chief. With the advent of click farms in Egypt and countries in the pacific, there has been a battle to control Facebook and other social media platforms from within the ecosystem. Welcome to the world of fakes.

Social media marketers will admit to you that nothing hits the dopamine pots harder than great number of followers and likes on posts. It gives a sense of power, influence and positive vibe to the influencer. It intimidates the competition or as some say, ’It puts them back in their place’

The idea of making a page to look bigger than it actually is on Facebook has a lot of pros. It builds confidence in anyone who stumbles upon the page and creates a picture of trust to people who doubt the existence, motives and integrity of the page. Of course, if the person is not willing to dig deeper to find the authenticity and validity of the large following, that is always a success.

That is where the pros of fake Facebook like end. They are known to haunt the page in the future and in the long run decimate the essence of the existence of the page.

To see the cons, of the fake likes one needs to understand how the fake likes are created. It is common for the likes to come form click farms which are normally found further from the targeted audience. These click farms pay people who have many fake accounts to click and follow or like pages as per the instructions that the farms give. When one pays for the likes, often through a third-party website, these farms provide the clicks through these accounts. The owners of the accounts are normally never interested in the content or orientation for the pages. Some of the cons include;

It is a waste of money.

There are some websites that give very good or budget friendly pricing strategies. They offer close to $100 for 5000 likes on a Facebook page. This looks like a good deal till one realizes that these likes will never engage in the page. Not only that, the accounts will never allow the algorithm to suggest the same page to other accounts that might engage with the page in future.

They never engage with the page.

The main reason for creating a Facebook page is for an individual or company to create a link with its audience or clientele where feedback can be channeled both ways. This makes the environment fit for both parties to interact in an environment that both feel comfortable.

Fake likes on the other hand do not engage with the posts that are created by the page administrators. They rarely come back to see who has posted what based on which topic and so forth. After clicking the like button, the contract or deal is basically done for the two parties.

They don’t give views.

The fake likes will most likely be from people whoa re not interested in the page. They only have the fiduciary duty of liking the page and forgetting it. If these likes were gotten from genuine Facebook ads and their interests are not in tandem with the regular posts of the page, they will most likely be side-lined by the algorithm.

This decreases the number of views that a post has. The low view count will also be noticed by Facebook algorithm and it will recommend the post less and less and to fewer people in the platform.

The algorithm is busy playing catch up.

Facebook is dedicated to clean its platform One way to do so is to delete and deactivate fake accounts. They keep improving on the performance of its algorithm to remove fake accounts. As a measure, the owners of these fake account s normally deactivate their accounts for some time to prevent the algorithm from detecting and deleting the accounts and all their engagements. If they are so unlucky and fall victim, they are normally deleted by the Facebook algorithm and you will lose the fake likes.

If these accounts were hacked, Facebook would detect unusual activity and block these accounts for the safety of the platform.

You risk being blocked.

If your page is suspected to carry out illegal activity or one that is termed illegal by Facebook, the page will most likely be banned or defuncted.

 If the majority of page likes are from fake accounts, the algorithm will most likely note the page as a ‘baddie’ and recommend it less and less to the followers’ friends. It will in some cases completely deactivate the page.