Put yourself in this situation: you’re the social media manager for a smallish business.  The top dog is constantly on you because you haven’t been able to show what the company has gained from all of your work.  You know one thing your boss will respond to is Facebook “likes”.  A large number of “likes” shows that your company is popular, which means a lot of people will see that ad you’re posting tomorrow, which will obviously lead to a whole lot of sales.  So, how do you get a whole bunch of “likes” for your page?

Easy!  You just go to one of those firms you’ve heard of that you can pay to find Facebook fans for you.  After all, their ad says they can get you 10,000 fans for a price that really isn’t that much.  That’s so much faster than coming up with interesting, relevant content to put on your Facebook page and hoping it will lure in people who are actually interested in your brand.

Obviously, buying fans is not the answer.  Sure, you might get some “likes” out of the deal.  But there are consequences.

One question has to be asked: who do you think these new “fans” are?  The company you just paid to get you “likes” doesn’t go out and present your page to people who might actually have an interest in your company.  They have a group of people with a bunch of fake Facebook accounts sitting around clicking “like” on pages all day.  Most of them will never look at your page again.  So, you will have a big number of fans, but you won’t have any more sales.

Buying Facebook fans instead of creating compelling content is like opening a store, barely stocking the shelves, and paying a bunch of people to walk in and out of your store without buying anything, just to make it look busy.

What’s worse is that your actual Facebook fans will notice.  Most people are savvy enough to spot a fake Facebook account.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened when a page you like suddenly has a lot more fans but nothing else has changed.  You will most likely lose the respect and business of your real fans, meaning you will be losing even more money.