Let’s face it. There is a certain amount of ego that goes into a business’s social media play. At first it was just having a presence on the likes of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare, or any of the number of social properties out there, that was something of a bragging right. As adoption grew, the presence became more of a necessity than a differentiator.
Now, as many companies are still trying to define how to truly measure their social media presence, one of the more tangible and immediate metrics being used is a number of “engagers”. (Such as a number of followers on Twitter, a number of video views on YouTube, a number of likes on Facebook.) Who of us hasn’t looked at the competition and compared how we stack up in terms of number of people that “like” our brand? That’s the ego aspect of the social space.
Resulting from the ego driven goals, have been a slew of companies that offer a guaranteed number of “likes”, followers, views, etc. for a relatively low cost. Just search on the phrase “buy Facebook likes”, and you will see a listing of companies that offer this, all touting speed with which they can deliver, guarantees of US based users, and of course, no “heavy lifting” in trying to build friends on your own.
I’ve tested a handful of these services on a few different occasions. I will be the first to admit that they do deliver what they promise, and most of the time, exceed the promised timeline expectations. (One company promised to build a volume of “likes” on Facebook in 10-20 days, and delivered on the guaranteed volume in just 2.) What they promise is volume of friends, followers, views, etc. However, that is all it has been – is volume. Rarely did actual engagement increase in terms of interaction with the content on the social sites. And isn’t that the true value of having people associate with your brand? So that you can engage with them?
These services offer quantity over quality. And there’s definitely a “black box” surrounding how friends, views, and followers are actually obtained. In researching various commentaries out there, along with how these services position themselves, some rely on invitations for users to follow, some utilize a base of users under the assumption that their friends and followers will build up additional volume, some guarantee only a portion of traffic based in the US, while others still don’t disclose much at all, leading to the assumption that at least a portion the user profiles aren’t real people. Other commentary out there proposes that there’s a network of people being paid to follow or friend companies who sign on for the service.
I will argue that in the long term, quantity is useless unless your volume of friends and followers will actual engage and interact with your brand. Isn’t the end objective of a true social media strategy to be able to build a community of people that will recommend or buy your brand or your products or services? The reality is that to truly build that strong community, takes time, effort, and patience. Marketers need to think about what content will engage their desired user base. They need to develop a strategy for starting and maintaining a conversation, which will lead users to evangelize the brand. They need to offer a reason for people to keep coming back or to keep talking. They need to promote themselves socially to attract friends, views, and followers. This can be a painstaking process, but one that in the long run will yield a much more qualified return than just a number of people or profiles that “like” you and then never think about you again.