A number of high-profile fan pages have seen a drop in the amount of ‘likes’ as Facebook gets tough on spammers.
The social media content site has removed fake accounts set up by spammers that boost a page’s popularity. This is after it revealed that 8.7 per cent of all user accounts are fake.
According to statistics from metrics company Pagedata, stars such as Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Eminem have all see the popularity of their pages decrease after the move.
Singer Gaga suffered the biggest loss – losing 34,326 likes. Rihanna also shed 28,275 fans, while Bieber was down by 27,859, according to musicweek.com.
The clean-up, which was announced in August, comes after the site said it is hoping to expand its targeted advertising service. Removing fake accounts will give investors more trustworthy data. It will also ensure their marketing is reaching real people, not online bots.
According to bcs.org, the site said on a blog post: “Real identity, for both users and brands on Facebook, is important to not only Facebook’s mission of helping the world share, but also the need for people and customers to authentically connect to the pages they care about.”
Statistics show that a Facebook fan is 5.3 times more likely to make a purchase than a non-fan.
