1. Malpractices in Social Media

2. • Social media revolutionized the marketing.
• Every business wants to be on
Facebook, twitter, YouTube and on other social
networks.
• It helped brand to show their humane side, to
connect with its target audience

3. • For marketers only thing that mattered initially was
Fans!
• More number of fans means more reach, more
captive audience, more reputation.
• Getting a fan without advertising was not so easy.
• Business turned to agencies for social media
management (and fans) as they had the “expertise”.

4. Fan Factory
• Looking at the demand, these agencies started Fan
Factories.
• They made thousands of fake profiles on these
networks and sold it to businesses as Fans.
• These were not the real people but only profiles.

5. End of Virality
• These Fans were no good for the business.
• They did not connect, engage or share
• It was just a number on the page.
• Which was more harmful than beneficial as all
strategies failed to get results making business think
social media is not for them.

6. TIP
• Only increasing numbers doesn't help.
• Building relationship matters.
• Don’t look for cheap fans, have a healthy conversation.
• Social media is all about conversation and hence need real
people to talk to.

7. Curbing the practice
• On realizing the about practice, social networks have
increased the security and verification process.
• Ip address are being tracked and blocked for any
suspicious activity.
• Verifications have been made stricter through mobile
verification system.

8. TIP
• If you suspect a fraud you can do a dip stick survey on
profiles on fans.
• If a fan has no or very few friends but likes hundreds and
thousands pages it might be a fake profile.
• If you find multiple such profiles you are probably a victim of
this fraud.
• If you are being guaranteed fans at cheap rates please look
into the details before buying.

9. The Clean Up Drive
• Facebook is getting rid of all such profiles.
• Number of business including big brands seeing
numbers depleting from their pages.

10. TIP
• If you have bought fans in past and now the numbers
are dropping rapidly you might be a victim of fraud.
• Thanks Facebook now you know how many real fans
you have.