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Serious Problems With Facebook Promotion: fraudulent clicks


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If you are using Facebook to promote your writing (selling a book, promoting articles), on a blog or website, you really should set aside 30 minutes, watch two short videos and read an article: Serious Problems With Facebook Promotion 

For example, all of the clicks I got from a Facebook ad, stayed on my website for 0 seconds.  Yes, you read that correctly, zero seconds--all of the "visitors."  I have very strong evidence to suggest all of those click were fakes.

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The most serious issue with running a Facebook Ad even when the clicks are real, which I've run campaigns and the clicks are actually real people, is the fact that no matter what way you set up the ad the people will like the post, but that's it. They will hardly like your Facebook page and they are even less likely to click through to the actual page. This means that even with the real interaction on the site the result is generally the same as the Fake interactions. 

The only real success I've seen is with people who already have a considerable following, and with music. People will actually do more with music.

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Hey Chris I went back and edits this post to narrow the focus to just writers which is all I use it for.  I won't try to speak to musicians.  Honestly I bet if you probed, you see anomalies in the data as well.

The videos demonstrates that Facebook is deliberately deceiving advertisers.  There is no other explanation for the data I shared.  

As you know I don't care about clicks or comments other the incentive that it may create to get people to click through to the website.  As the videos show many of the likes are fake too.  

I've been railing against Facebook for social issues, but the real story is they are ripping advertisers off.  Facebook is clever and slick, and if I had not looked very deep, and in a way most people don't I would never have discovered. it.

The give away was that the book I was advertising generated 20 clicks (this was supported by my own click tracked and the Facebook report).  On average, I sell on average one book for every 12 clicks, Since I got 20 clicks on the Facebook ad I expected at least one sale.  I checked Amazon and B&N and there was not a single click for the book!  

This seemed very odd so I checked Google saw that the "visitors" click the link but technically did not look at the site.

I seriously doubt, I'm the only one this is being done to.

The other problem is that ads on AALBC.com are far more effective than facebook, but if Facebook is touting fake numbers they can look better to advertisers.  This tends to hurt all other advertisers trying to play by the rules.

Another problem is that the fake click from Facebook inflates my website traffic.  The impact is too small to be measurable, but for large advertisers who spend a lot of money they are effectively paying for fake traffic.

 

 

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If you reread my statement I'm in complete agreement with you. My main point is that even when Facebook gives you real "clicks" there is zero conversion. Which supports your claim. The problem is people aren't going to understand this and dig because they are not in the fields that we are in. For many Facebook likes and clicks are about popularity and seeming popularity. So if it looks like I'm getting engagement I can sell my status to someone looking for what I'm doing. You know what I mean? 

Basically if I pay for likes and shares and 500 people like and share, I can parlay this into being a social media expert and then teach classes on how to get more likes and shares on Facebook. People simply don't understand that a like and a share is nothing without conversion.

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What do you expect! LOL! Laughing but not really since we are really talking to ourselves about this issue and we still end up right back at the same spot... trying to get people to visit websites more often. I guess I can't complain since I do talk to friends on the platform. But I'm officially only using Amazon Ads for my sneakers and AALBC for my book promotion. Outside of that I think I'm just going to keep creating content. That's the least I can do.

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Chris I was one of those people who was a "social media expert," I even gave fee based seminars on the subject, but that was back in the days when social media was less familiar to marketers and you could have grow your audience organically.  

Today, I would not mess with Facebook unless I had some serious paper and someone to evaluate, and vet, all of the advertisements placed.  Which is why I really do use the platform and more, nor would I recommend for small businesses.

But right now, you are right, we are talking to each other in our own bubble.  But there will be someone who reads this in 2016 and it will benefit from this conversation.  This is the beauty of the web, outside social media.

I had lunch with a buddy yesterday, who manages social media for a number of not-for-profits.  He told me that he was attempting to use Facebook to invite an organization's fans to an event, but Facebook stopped him at 500 invites.  Not 500 per instance, or 500 per day (say to stop spamming)--but 500 period!  You could invite them all if he PAID to do it.

Again these were fans that he worked to cultivate over a period of a couple of years.  I told he he should just email them and stop trying to manage your contracts on Facebook, that is a revenue stream for Facebook--when it should be a revenue stream for you.

He also told me that is source of traffic was similar to mine. Google Paid, Google Organic, referrals from other sites, and social was way down on the list.  Keep in mind they actively engage on social media AND spend money on advertising.

Chris we need to talk about the AALBC.com promotion piece.

 

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You know I'm ready to talk about that promotional part, but I'm continuing to discuss the Facebook issue as honestly Facebook is the "best" and most actively used Social platform. I did a video yesterday, but I think I'm failing to really capture and explain clearly what the problem is. Maybe you should do a video and I will link to yours on my video through annotations. My discussion in my video is about starting a business with "no" money and how we (everyone on Facebook) has taken away one of the primary opportunities in making a new small business because of our browsing habits/lack of browsing habits. I think this conversation is the one that will eventually carry the most weight. Once people realize that they have spent so much time giving away their info on Facebook and enriching Facebook that people no longer feel a need to visit the new websites that they create. We have all literally cut outselves out of the Ad revenue and Affiliate revenue owed us for sharing information.

Now that I read what I just wrote, I can go back and do another video because that's very clear right there ^^^^^. I will look forward to an e-mail from you or phone call, either one. I think your movement of the book has generated in a sale already. If you got affiliate revenue then I guess we will know for certain.

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Chris, I'm pretty much fully engaged on the AALBC.com website redesign, but I agree the video would be a good idea.  I just need to find the time to do it.  I would also like to step up the production quality of my video, that takes even more time.

As far as Facebook social media in general, it would be helpful to have more case studies.  Ideally, getting folks in a room together for a day would probably be very helpful.  You might recall the Black Enterprise meeting I went to last year, and found so disappointing as it turned out to be a social media sales pitch rather than an opportunity to learn strategies for using the platforms for our benefit. 

Lets talk tomorrow (Tuesday 10/20) I'm available all day. 

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