We have learned about the challenges with measuring social media and accounting for meaningful metrics. While we know that the number of followers an account has are not everything, they do play into the overall success when we measure an account’s influence. For example, if a Facebook account made for your brand had 100 followers, and was receiving 80-90 likes or comments per post, we might say 80-90 percent of followers are engaging with the brand, a very positive metric. If it were a grade, it would be an A or a B.
If ten of those accounts were fake, that grade would quickly drop to the C-range.
PC Magazine reported that 8.7 Facebook accounts are fake. “That works out to about 83 million accounts that are either trying to spam you, in violation of Facebook’s rules, or are just confused,” the article said.
If that is the case on Facebook, what does that mean for other social media platforms? What does this mean for those who need these numbers to measure metrics? Would a new best practice be to always account for potential fake followers? Fake followers are even worse than those who do not engage. Having fake followers does not even allow you to raise awareness of your brand. What do you think?
AU MA Social Media 