Does your competitor have fake Facebook fans? Do you? Are you unduly influenced by fake fan counts on Facebook? Could be. The phenomenon of fake Facebook fans has grown rapidly. Even though it is recognized as a black-hat technique, today it seems to be all reward and no repercussions. But that may soon change.

The problem starts when businesses pay unscrupulous companies who promise to boost a page’s fan count. These businesses offer little in the way of details for how they will accomplish this, and the page owners ask too few questions. What ends up happening is that relatively inactive pages that normally may have one hundred fans end up with a thousand or more fans. The problem is that these page likes are almost exclusively from accounts that don’t seem to have active social media participants using them.

Why would a business pay for this? Reason number one may simply be not knowing any better. However, there are two tangible rewards that can come from these artificially inflated fan counts.

  1. Research demonstrates that when potential customers are trying to choose between businesses, they often review the social media presence of those businesses – especially Facebook. A fan count that is higher than the competitor’s gives the impression that the business in question is more established and more appreciated.
  2. Google has indicated that they are using social media authority in their search engine algorithms. In other words, businesses with more Facebook fans may be more likely to rank well in search engine results.

If you visit pages on Facebook, it is likely that you have encountered an artificially inflated page. Here are the tell-tale signs of fake fans.

  1. A page with very little activity but a fan count that is five to ten times greater than their direct competitors.
  2. A page where the fan count is way out of proportion with the post engagement such as likes, shares, and comments. A page with 1,000 fans should at least get five pity-likes per post and should occasionally have posts with 30+ likes or shares.

There are a finite number of correct ways to get Facebook fans. Chief among these are:

  1. Deliver a great service or product so real customers will want to fan your page.
  2. Have great content on your page so people will want to subscribe.
  3. Pay Facebook to generate ads that are geared toward increasing your fan count. Alternatively, you can pay a business to set up these Facebook ads for you, but in the end, the only outfit that should be getting paid for ads is Facebook.

How to protect yourself and your business:
Never pay a company that promises a definite number of fans in exchange for a fee. Definite numbers are a sign of black-hat techniques. Honest marketers know that the exact same strategy can have explosive effects for one business and only adequate effects for the next. It depends on a high number of variables.
If your competitor has collected fake Facebook fans, ignore it. Focus on doing the right thing all the time, and your rewards will come in the end.
If you are researching companies with which you may do business and see signs of fan tampering, say “Honey, please!”

What are the real-world drawbacks of this black-hat technique? In all reality, at present, there seem to be none. However, this is common of new black-hat techniques, and history shows us that just deserts are eventually served. Facebook has already made it clear they are aware of the practice and they are working to “clean up” the situation.