This article needs to be circulated far and wide, it explains what’s probably happening when you “like” viral Facebook posts.
So what’s going on? Well, in the social media age, every eyeball, follow, or like has value, and someone’s out to get yours.
Some of them may be genuine. Some may just be crazy kids getting a kick out of watching the likes skyrocket. Some may link through to sites that you really don’t want to go to.
And some of them are making cold hard cash.
Daylan Pearce from Next Digital, Australia’s biggest independent digital agency, says Facebook has an algorithm that helps posts go viral – you can read about it on his website.
Build up enough likes and people can then sell the page to someone else who can use the well-liked page for whatever they want.
Or it’s just a tricky marketing technique – there’s a US online community called CafeMom that has gathered more than 1.3 million likes with the line “Click ‘like’ if you love your kids!”.
Ugh. It’s almost always about money, eh? Those flipping Internet Marketers drive me batty.
Not only that, I’ve received those “click ‘like’ if you hate cancer” posts. I never click them but sheesh… I feel guilty afterwards. (I guess my guilt threshold is pretty low.) 🙂
Fear and greed are the two biggest motivating factors marketers like to poke to make the sale. It’s interesting to see they’re up to their old tricks and even more interesting to note that readers are still falling for the same old game plan.
I love how this piece ends:
“Pro tip: If you do see a post about sick kids with rare cancer who lost all their family to a horrible house fire and if you don’t like it then 100 more children will get cancer from terrorists – it’s not real. Don’t click on it. Share this post within 10 seconds if you agree! Don’t share and you will get AIDs.”
