Facebook is full of awe inspiring/ heart wrenching / funny / touching / emotional stuff! Usually pictures – like and see what happens, or like this in 5 seconds if….You know the kind of stuff which often fills your page up. The kind of things that provoke thoughts of sadness, and happiness. The images which I find the most upsetting are of children with sever illnesses. Very often these are set up by an individual looking to make a quick buck.
This type of post is designed to get as many likes and shares as possible. This activity boosts the page in terms of the Facebook algorithm. In other words the more activity the page gets then the more “important” it becomes and the more exposure it gets. The importance is measured using Facebook’s “Edge Rank”. Edge Rank measures the importance of a page using several criteria (Affinity, Weight and Time Decay). Edge Rank determines what is displayed and how high up on the news feed. The page then becomes valuable to the page owner and is sold.
This is how it works:
- A new facebook page is created.
- Posts are shared between a large group of people/pages from the same network who have built up a good “Edge Rank”
- The new facebook page feeds out a constant stream of images that are shared publicly – sometimes going viral and with a call to action – like share, type xyz if you like etc etc
- Eventually a friend of yours clicks the thumbs up button, or shares the image….
- It’s in your newsfeed.
It can take just several days to get thousands of likes using this method. Then the page is sold. The buyer then changes some of the page details. They have a business facebook page automatically with lots of likers, although possibly an unengaged following, a great edge rank, capable of pushing out content to thousands of Facebook users.
Social media is a fantastic way to build a brand and engage with your clients when done in the right way.
Next time you see that child with cancer needing a million likes, remember that behind the scenes are some greedy unethical people creating a high profile page to sell on.
If you need help with your social media campaign, give us a call.