Wow, I can get a lot of Facebook likes quickly!
-
I did some testing with Facebook ads and resulting Facebook likes on target pages. And something is wrong!
Just after creating the ad, before the ad was approved, I could get many likes on the target page without even seeing any traffic on server logs or google analytics.
I documented my tests here. I repeated the tests 6 times, every time I could get tens of likes on the target page within seconds and without any approval of the ad.
These pages have little traffic and there's no way these likes could have been natural!
Everyone I reported was able to reproduce it, try yourself.
A little update. I found others reporting un-expected Likes pouring...
But at least they were "running" the ad, so externals to Facebook could have seen it and decided to Like it to later offer "liking" service as reported from this fellow.
But in my case the ad was not approved... So... Who can see it beside me and Facebook?
-
Max -
Yes, this was for a non-profit, religious organization to promote an important holiday event that was $36 in price. I can't share the conversion data, but it reached a significantly new audience in a 25 mile area around the city, with lots of conversions, a ton of impressions. Honestly I didn't even pay attention to the Facebook likes, as it didn't really matter to this campaign. I'd be happy to discuss more offline, though, if you want to message me.
Thanks!
- Jeff
-
I am very curious to know what you will find out, Jeff. Let me know when you have the results.
If I may ask, when you said your recent campaign was very successful, by which metrics? Can you share some details?
I am really hungry for FB campaign data, wish people was sharing info on FB campaigns more.
-
Yes, that is indeed strange.
I just ran a very successful campaign on Facebook recently, and it did garner more likes. Although that wasn't the intention of the ad, and I didn't do any testing during the pre-approval campaign to track likes.
I think it's people like you, who measure and track everything, that help unravel some of the mystery behind some of these new systems that are fairly opaque to the outside world. So well done...
I have an upcoming Facebook campaign that I'm poised to run soon, and will do some additional tracking and measurement on this issue.
Thanks!
- Jeff
-
So far the likes are still there.
If it was some sort of ad testing, why liking the url more than once, or twice... If it's just a test? Why 60 times?
Furthermore, with your question you are opening a door into another mystery. In the past weeks I tested likes campaigns for fan pages. And what I noticed is that once I stop the campaign not only the likes rate per day decrease, but the balance between likes and unlikes in the following days and weeks stay flat, in other words the total amount of likes stay the same. Which sounds odd for few reasons, 1) who goes back to unlike something? I actually never did, 2) how could likes and unlikes balance each other regularly, week after week?
It sounds suspicious.
Especially when you consider FB removed the possibility to list users who liked something from graph api and fql.
All people reporting FB likes fraud in the past were looking at profile of users liking their page or url and finding strange things. And FB remove that.
I keep thinking it smell badly.
-
Max - That's indeed interesting. Quick question, though... did the Facebook "Likes" stay on the sites, or did this number decrease?
I wonder if part of Facebook's automated testing procedure is to crawl the site with their internal systems, and make sure that the page mentioned in the advertisement works properly, in order to combat fraud / phishing / cross-liking?
Most of the research out there has more to do with combatting fake "Likes" that people buy from companies, and how this can affect a business:
http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2329878/Facebook-Ad-Fraud-How-Can-Advertisers-Combat-Paid-Likes
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How can I most effectively use Twitter to increase traffic and promote sales for our fine art business?
My wife and I are struggling to promote her sales of Fine art wildlife art and nature paintings; both originals and fine art prints.We have had a website for over 10 years; with virtually no traffic, and only an occasional sale (averaging about one per year). How can we most effectively use the Twitter platform to generate leads and sales?
Social Media | | nomadjim0 -
Facebook Blocking Site
This is been a big annoyance for me. My site was on wordpress before and was infected with malware at one point. We were blocked by major AV, Google, and etc but we got the infection cleaned up quickly and got unblocked. Problem now is that Facebook, we are still blocked on. We try to post a link and says we are harmful. We got unblocked from facebook and we posted but than they blocked us again. We have submitted multiple requests on that form but got no answer. As a marketing agency, having our facebook page blocked to our site is bad. What can we do in this situation? We have no direct contact with anyone at facebook nor do they reply to our requests. I do own a .net to my domain, should we start using that instead of .com or what? We really need to find a way out of this. It is hurting our reputation.
Social Media | | Tech-Critic0 -
Changing Facebook Username
HI Does anyone know of any negative consequences of changing Facebook username ? For example i take it all your fans are transferred/you dont lose them 🙂 ? Its just a url change (so links on website etc need to be updated) but thats the only thing that changes ? Many Thanks Dan
Social Media | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
How should I structure my facebook like buttons?
I have a facebook like button on my homepage. Currently, it points to my facebook page, so every time someone likes this button they are liking my facebook page. Is this how it should be structured? Do the likes count towards my home page? Is there a way that a like can simultaneously like my facebook page AND my website? Which is best for search metrics? Thanks for your responses.
Social Media | | MarloSchneider0 -
Facebooking and Liking - Whis is best SEO practice for Rankings
Hi everyone! , i am a rookie with SEO. I have a very specific question for which i would love to hear your opinions on this. I have a facebook fan page about my company. We try to post quality stuff in regard to the industry we are in. However, we are social people, and i have seen improvements whenever we post more "social" topics such as TGIF, Photos, DIY themes. My question is (Actually two questions) : Is there a direct correlation or metric between rankings and "likes", the size of your facebook community ? If so, which has more power or effect on rankings. Facebook Likes generated from your website , or General Likes of posts within your existing community. Hope to hear from ya! Every advice is good advice. Regards Jesus D Aceromart
Social Media | | JesusD0 -
Anyone do SEO for facebook business pages? I'm having trouble with timeline layout.
I am working on my facebook business page and am frustrated with the new "timeline" facebook layout which really does not make sense as a business page. I have not found a way to change it to a traditional layout and have read some posts that said facebook does not allow you to go back from timeline. Does anyone have a good layout suggestions for a facebook business page with SEO in mind? Thanks.
Social Media | | frankthetank20 -
Facebook Comments | Massive Overall Increase in Rankings! Anybody else experience this?
Last week I implemented Facebook Comments and Addthis to my site. Rankings went up for nearly all my keywords. I have people from Africa, Europe and USA asking questions. Every time someone comments, it is shared on their Facebook Wall. I want to know if anybody has experienced this besides me? Here's my site if you want to see it in action.
Social Media | | Francisco_Meza0 -
How do I control the thumbnail image for a link on a Facebook post?
Hi, All! I've spent about an hour working on this with no success, so I thought I would ask the community: How do you tell Facebook which image to put in for the thumbnail on a link you're posting? And I would like it to be a different image for each post, and I don't want to have to deal with programming PHP (the main solutions I saw). I'm on a Wordpress based site, and I've tried putting images in as the featured image, made sure they weren't huge (under 200x200), made sure they were .jpeg... and the only thing that Facebook offers me as a thumbnail is a generic "green globe" image that I don't believe comes from my site at all. Any ideas? Thanks in advance!
Social Media | | debi_zyx0