Malpractices in Social Media

• Social media revolutionized the marketing.

• Every business wants to be on Facebook, twitter, YouTube and on other social networks.

• It helped brand to show their humane side, to connect with its target audience

• For marketers only thing that mattered initially was Fans!

• More number of fans means more reach, more captive audience, more reputation.

• Getting a fan without advertising was not so easy.

• Business turned to agencies for social media management (and fans) as they had the “expertise”.

Fan Factory

• Looking at the demand, these agencies started Fan Factories.

• They made thousands of fake profiles on these networks and sold it to businesses as Fans.

• These were not the real people but only profiles.

End of Virality

• These Fans were no good for the business.

• They did not connect, engage or share

• It was just a number on the page.

• Which was more harmful than beneficial as all strategies failed to get results making business think social media is not for them.

TIP

• Only increasing numbers doesn't help.

• Building relationship matters.

• Don’t look for cheap fans, have a healthy conversation.

• Social media is all about conversation and hence need real people to talk to.

Curbing the practice• On realizing the about practice, social networks have

increased the security and verification process.

• Ip address are being tracked and blocked for any suspicious activity.

• Verifications have been made stricter through mobile verification system.

TIP

• If you suspect a fraud you can do a dip stick survey on profiles on fans.

• If a fan has no or very few friends but likes hundreds and thousands pages it might be a fake profile.

• If you find multiple such profiles you are probably a victim of this fraud.

• If you are being guaranteed fans at cheap rates please look into the details before buying.

The Clean Up Drive

• Facebook is getting rid of all such profiles.

• Number of business including big brands seeing numbers depleting from their pages.

TIP

• If you have bought fans in past and now the numbers are dropping rapidly you might be a victim of fraud.

• Thanks Facebook now you know how many real fans you have.