Don’t invite all of your friends to like your Facebook Page.

So you’re a social media marketer.  You’ve set up a new Facebook business page for a client, and you want to grow the page.

So in a hunt for more likes, you go to your friends’ list on your personal account and send a mass invite for them to like the page on Facebook.

Would you believe that you could be hurting your client more than you are helping?

In this article, we will explain to you how mass inviting people to like a business page is not only a waste of time but how it could actually do more harm than good.

Number of Likes is a really just a Vanity Metric

Vanity Metrics are best explained as page likes on Facebook, subscribers on YouTube, followers on Twitter, etc. 

While this data and statistics may give you a warm fuzzy feeling, and allow you to puff out your chest and feel a sense of accomplishment, often, these numbers serve no purpose.

Here’s why:
So you hit that invite button and sent out mass, unsolicited invites to your Facebook friends.  Let’s just suppose that they all liked the page. What have you accomplished? Absolutely Nothing!

These people went and clicked like on the page because you suggested it.  Chances are they’ll never become a customer of that business. So, what have you accomplished? Absolutely Nothing!

Sure, you now have a page with a zillion likes, but how many of those are going to become actively engaged with the business page?   Probably none.   

As a matter of fact, Search Engine Journal goes as far as to say we should stop tracking likes and follows at all.  The industry giant even goes as far as to call social media marketers who place too much weight on these metrics as, “no better than the frauds, quacks, and charlatans who used to sell “snake oil” as a cure-all elixir for many kinds of physiological problems.” (Source Two Social Media Vanity Metrics You Need to Stop Tracking)

Ouch!

Facebook hates spam.

Much like Google, Facebook strives to

“limit the spread of spam because we do not want to allow content that is designed to deceive, or that attempts to mislead users to increase viewership. This content creates a negative user experience and detracts from people’s ability to engage authentically in online communities. We also aim to prevent people from abusing our platform, products, or features to artificially increase viewership or distribute content en masse for commercial gain.”

(Source: Facebook Community Standards)

Guess what sending bulk facebook invites to like a business page or fan page is.

Or how about, inviting all of your friends to like your page and share the page from your personal profile?

You guessed it.  Spam.

Facebook’s algorithm hates them

In 2018 (decades ago in social media marketing time), Mark Zuckerberg announced through his at the time executive Adam Mosseri (now CEO of Instagram), that they were making changes in their algorithm aimed at reducing “fluff.”

What this means is that Facebook tailors its algorithm toward the creation of engaging content, not content that floods social media feeds. Mosseri went on to say,

“To do this, we will predict which posts you might want to interact with your friends about, and show these posts higher in their feed. These are posts that inspire back-and-forth discussion in the comments and posts that you might want to share and react to – whether that’s a post from a friend seeking advice, a friend asking for recommendations for a trip, or a news article or video prompting lots of discussions.”

(Source) Facebook

People hate them

Receiving mass invites is right up there with sending group texts.  It’s actually one of 5 annoying social media practices that customers hate.

Don’t aggravate potential customers!

Focus on creating compelling content for your client that provides value.

Some social marketing hacks will justify sending mass invites by saying that the practice increases brand recognition.  But does brand recognition necessarily mean more conversions?

Nope

The internet is full of noise.  Don’t just be another voice vying for potential customers’ attention. 

You’ll fail every time.

Instead offer something of value.  Creating compelling content that is share-worthy and engaging will help your clients reach in more productive ways than simply a bunch of zombie likes on a page.

Think about it.

You make a post that people share.  They’re talking about it. They’re engaged.

Facebook sees that, and they serve it to more people.

Why?

Because they want engagement.

Focus on creating content that will convert viewers into customers.

Marketing 101 tells you that you want your client’s content to be seen by people who are inclined to purchase the business’ goods or services.  Anything else is a waste of time right?

You wouldn’t make a sales pitch for baseball bats at a retirement home, would you?

(If you said yes, you may want to start looking for another industry to work in!)

Sure, the argument can be made that you may manage to sell one or two bats, but are you being efficient?  Don’t you think it would be more equitable to pitch them at perhaps a little league conference?

Your client deserves (and expects) the best bang for their buck, so machine-gunning people’s newsfeeds (who may or may not see it) is an outdated way of thinking.

We’re here to help!

We’re experienced and have the knowledge and certifications to take care of all aspects of social media marketing and beyond. Contact us and let’s come up with a social media marketing strategy for your brand or business.

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