At this point pretty much every business has some kind of social media presence and if you have been active on these account for long enough you've noticed quite a few fake accounts.
These fake accounts mass like your posts, message you asking to join group messages or just simply follow you. They seem harmless, but there are 2 major ways they can have a negative impact on businesses.
Less Reach
Facebook and Instagram have algorithms that decide how many of your followers they show your posts to. The algorithms are constantly changing to pressure businesses in to buying ads, but there is one constant.
Within the first few minutes/hours of posting, if a low percentage of followers like that post, then they will not show your post to the rest of your followers.
This means if you have a lot of these fake accounts following you that don't like your posts, then loyal followers may not see your content.
This is a pretty big deal! You want as many people to see your social media posts as possible.
Clicking/Viewing Ads
These fake accounts serve an even darker purpose. They are part of "click farms" that view/like/click on social media paid ads.
This means when you are running ads through Facebook/Instagram you are paying for these fake accounts that like/view/click on your posts.
In an article by Forbes, businesses and advertisers claimed that almost 90% of traffic from Facebook/Instagram ads are fake.
Fake accounts and clicks deceive advertisers in to thinking their campaign is performing well and they are receiving the clicks/views they paid for, when in reality advertisers are essentially throwing their money down the drain.
It is estimated that there have been 12 billion Facebook accounts created and 10 billion of them have been fake.
Facebook has been making an effort to delete these fake accounts, but do they have a real incentive? Facebook/Instagram still make money on their ads if the clicks are real or not.
Take a minute to examine your paid social media advertising efforts. If you think fake accounts may be plaguing your campaigns then consider REACHur. REACHur has real people in your target market post your ads on their social media accounts.
