BREAKING: Facebook pads "likes" for advertisers!

Of course, I don't know this for 100% fact...yet, but the evidence is mounting.

It happened when I noticed a major slowing up of my ads after I ADDED $1 to my daily budget, so naturally I was curious as to why the "likes" began to creep in when they were steady at 500/day or more.

It wasn't the content, or EDGE, because that was getting commented on and shared rather well. (Google Plus has a much better engagement/conversation rate, but that's a whole 'nother argument.)

So after a few days of creeping along in "likes" I stopped advertising for not just 1 page, but for 3 pages I was doing. Almost immediately the likes started dropping. Not in big, noticeable chunks, but one by one they disappeared and are still disappearing.

I've heard that there are 1 billion+ "active" users on Facebook, but I've also heard 250k or more of those are fake, inactive or, now, "like fillers" for Facebook's advertisers.

Why would they do this? Simple. If you see a flood of people liking your stuff, then you're very likely to keep putting money in the Facebook machine with little regard to who's actually doing the liking.

It should be noted that MANY advertising accounts have large numbers of likes, but low "people talking about this" numbers. Why the discrepancy? The numbers should at least be 3:1, but that's not even close. Do "targeted, interested" people like a page, then abandon it altogether? That doesn't seem right.

My Bible devotional page actually has a higher ratio of likes/engagement because it has 14381 likes, but only 4669 talking about it - BUT that's a much better ratio than I've seen elsewhere. It's not the way I use the page because I get multiple likes and comments on every post - I do 2 a day right now. (Of couse, as my likes slowly start to fade, all these numbers will come crashing down.)

So, something's up. I can't quite actually claim Facebook is scamming the advertisers and cooking the books to keep people paying, but it seems highly likely.

It's a shame, too. I was really starting to like Facebook...again.

Maybe I'm wrong and that would be awesome...