Buy Facebook Likes for visitor trust?

[TheDude]

I was curious if anyone ever considered buying Facebook likes to increase visitor trust.  Our homepage has only 75 likes even though we are a leader within our industry.  A smaller competitor has over 1,000.  If all else is equal, I question whether this helps to influence trust amongst visitors and whether there is any value in doing some Fiverr deals to buy FB likes.

My concern would be to be in Google's bad graces by them thinking we are doing this strictly for ranking.  However, now that Google has declared that social signals are not a ranking factor, I feel this is less black hat and maybe something that Google won't care about.

Thoughts?

[DonnaDuncan]

I don't recommend it. It hurts visibility and engagement. Facebook, like Google, penalizes pages that are trying to game the system. http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/fake-facebook-fans/

[SilverDoor]

Hi TheDude,

In short.....no!

This is an extremely poor way to build trust. It's manipulative, underhand and will inevitably just end badly.

All it takes is for one person to find this out and before you know it, your brand is tarnished.

In my opinion, how Google views this behaviour is completely irrelevant. Even if they won't penalise you for this, it is still bad business practice. I advise you stay well away from things like this.

Instead, put your efforts into long-term strategies that will help you naturally build consumer trust and with it your consumer base.

The right way is often the harder, but it always pays off in the long term.

Thanks,

SilverDoor

[TomRayner]

It's an interesting discussion and one that I hope that the other commentor's won't dismiss out of hand.  The main hypothesis is: Does having a larger social following increase a brand's legitimacy/authenticity/trust with a consumer?

Unfortunately, there are not any case studies that I can see that test this theory, and certainly not any that bought Facebook likes outright.  As you'd expect, there are a number of sources that say it's a bad idea, such as this, and this.

On a complete hunch, I'd guess that it would help increase your perceived "trust" with a potential client, but due to a lack of evidence I can't recommend you doing so - in this way at least.

I would, however, encourage you to promote your Facebook page to increase your likes and followers with targeted and engaged users. You can do this through promoted advertising on Facebook itself, or other places like Twitter or reddit.  It will cost more to reach a figure of, say, 1000 likes than just outright buying them - but this way you'll know that the people liking your page, if targeted correctly, will be of a relevant audience and much more likely to engage with your brand.  If you have a Facebook page bursting with user activity, that will certainly help to build trust too.

I suppose it comes down to like most things in life, if you cut corners you risk doing more harm than good.  Promoting your Facebook page in a proper way will not only increase likes (and potentially perceived trust), but in doing so you are introducing your brand to your target audience - meaning you could get conversions out of it you might not have done before.

These links will help you out:

How to Use Promoted Page Ads to Get Tons of New Likes on Facebook

A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Ads

The Ultimate Guide to Running Online Competitions

As for testing whether just buying likes increases "trust", it would be an interesting study to see that's for sure.

Hope this helps.

[TheDude]

Thanks for the input guys.  I asked because the idea wasn't sitting right.  I guess I could have listened to my gut!

Another option is for me to have every page on my site 'like' the homepage rather than the specific URL.  This would create the increased 'like' effect for all pages since any 'like' button clicked would increase the counter.  This is what my competitor did.

[deelo555]

I know someone that bought likes for their facebook page for an ecommerce site. What I can tell you is that they really regretted the decision.

1. The effect on conversion rate is absolutely tiny.
2. It ruins any metrics when you start doing social marketing. You won't be able tell which posts are engaging your customers etc.
3. You won't be able to remove the likes from your facebook page easily so think carefully before you buy a large number of likes whether its really worth it. IMO, it's not.

[deelo555]

Actually why don't you run a conversion test and see what the effect is?

Setup a new facebook page. Buy yourself a bunch of likes.

Split test the pages with and without the fake facebook page.

[BlueprintMarketing]

do not purchase any form of likes thumbs up whatever's on any social media network.

I have gone to twitter and seeing peoples profile that have a bunch of questions like "how do I remove myself from following this person"

obviously anybody that is going to sell you a likes, or any social signal is a very black hat method that should be avoided at all cost.

As was shown by other people Google will definitely penalize you it's not a question of if it's when.

Don't go down that road.

All the best,

Thomas

[deelo555]

I'm not sure google would penalize you for this.

After all, it would be very easy to buy likes for a competitor site and damage their rankings if this was the case.

[Maayboli]

1. I absolutely think having additional facebook likes increases both trust and conversion.  Social proof as a marketing enhancer has been working for mankind long before online social media came into picture. I have seen it is working in steps (jumps). Having X+10, X+20 may not help by y=X+1000 suddenly helps (1000 is used as example and it would be different for different domains). Once you reach Y, y+10, Y+20 does not help till you goto say z=y+5000

2. However buying on fiverr does not help.  They way I would suggest is to use official facebook boost for pages and posts. Try various combination of targetting etc to see what works for you. Now it is very possible , as you explore this your brand getting more visible to target audience and that is why conversion increases. but it does definitely help.

3. The very first 50 fans are most toughest to get for any page. Specially if you can't ask friends or employees to like a page. In that case you would want to try fiverr till get first 50. Because first 50 are anyway not real "fans" but from employees or wellwishers etc who does not add any value to conversion. Once you get the minimum , you can goto step 2 above. Going to step 2) directly with 0 fans, is very costly.

[Chris661]

I think most companies want to have a significant number of likes just for the optics.  A consumer might be skeptical of a site with very few likes. But what good likes actually do you is questionable. Especially since FB doesn't send your posts to your entire fan base but has some formula they use depending on your pages engagement. More over they want you to boost posts so they make a profit. Hey, can't blame them for that. "Boosting" a post sends it to more of your fans.

There are pages that keep fans engaged and no doubt it helps the business, but it takes posting regularly. If you just want a nice big number of likes, use FB advertising as others here have suggested to get more likes. It is relatively easy to do and they have very good help pages. They even have a program for new advertisers where they will mentor you through desktop sharing with one of their in house trainers. It requires a commitment to spend $50/day for 30 days on FB ads. The trainers are very good as well.

Best!

[TheDude]

Thanks Chris.  I think this is the best route for us to take.  I'll look into this further