Hey fellas. I've been in this business for years now and I'd like to share my experience with you. I'll tell some important things about page trading as well, I suggest you read it especially if you're not familiar with that concept. 1. Reach > Likes Yes, post reach is more important than total page likes. Thinking the other way around is one of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to evaluating Facebook pages. Of course page likes are important but they aren't so important that you should totally ignore post reach. Because, THE point of having a Facebook page is to reach people. A 50k page that reaches 1k people in an instant is much more valuable than a page that has a million fans but can't reach more than 1k people with any post. Think of it this way; wouldn't it be better to be among a dozen people who truly like you and are interested in what you have to say, instead of being in a huge crowd that doesn't hear you and are not even interested in you at all? 2. But what IS "reach"? It is the amount of people who's seen the post. Beware, it is frequently confused with impression, and that is a dangerous mistake! "Impressions are the number of times a post from your Page is displayed, whether the post is clicked or not. People may see multiple impressions of the same post. For example, someone might see a Page update in News Feed once, and then a second time if their friend shares it. Reach is the number of people who received impressions of a Page post. Reach might be less than impressions since one person can see multiple impressions." So, impressions may be a misleading source of information while reach shows exact figures that you can trust and depend on. 3. How does FB decide how many people a post will reach? * A post doesn't just show up on the wall of all your followers right away. Facebook tests your audience first. It creates a temporary audience that consists of random accounts picked from your fanbase, size of that temporary audience is about %1 of total likes your page has. (Let's call this custom audience %1 from now on.) Then, Facebook presents your post to this %1. Now the fate of your post is at the hands of %1, because if they engage with your post (like, comment or share), Facebook will mark your post as a high quality one and will present it to bigger and bigger crowds as long as they interact with your post. BUT if %1 doesn't interact with your post, Facebook will come to the conclusion that post is unimportant, spam or just weak, and will not show it to any more people. Thus, your post is stuck at less than %1 engagement. This is something we all experience from time to time, we can't always find the perfect content. However, if most of a page's posts remain below the %1 barrier, that could only mean one thing. BOT FANS. 4. What are bot fans? Fellas, you may be absolutely sure about one thing: BOT FOLLOWER = DEAD PAGE. We all have an idea what a bot follower is. It is a fake account that usually pretends to be a human, artificial intelligence (I'm not sure about the intelligence part tho...) These accounts are usually controlled by bot farms, like factories, in developing countries like India. Now, some people might knowingly buy bots for scam, fraud and such ill will purposes, but if you're willing to make an honest buck, DO NOT "BUY LIKES". 5. Why are bots harmful? Because bots are not interested in your content, no matter how good it is. Because bots don't have interests. Because, well, you know, they are not real people. But hey, even though they are not real, their damage is. Example: You worked hard and managed to build a page with 5k genuine, organic likes. Now you want more and found out about "likes for sale" and wanted to give it a try: you bought 5k bot likes... Mistake of your professional FB life. You've just polluted half of your %1 with uninterested, soulless bots. No matter how hard you try, how good you are, they'll never give a damn about your content, will not interact with it and therefore, will bring you down. Congratulations, you just killed your own page with your own hands probably paid money for that too. Even if your page is not dead, it sure is crippled for life because those bots are not going anywhere and they will forever decrease your reach and engagement rates. Your page will never reach its full potential. 6. So where do I get more likes?! If you are honest, create good content and work smart (not necessarily hard), manage your Facebook ads well, you'll be able to reach 5-10k audience in time. Once you have that kind of audience, your page will grow organically without needing your special effort on growth, because people will be sharing your posts. That'll bring their friends, and their friends, and so on. Facebook's AD program is really harsh on newbies, there's no denying it. Cost of a single like can go up to $3 per piece, which is kinda ridiculous. But with enough knowledge, you can lower it. I personally run most my ads at 2 cents per page like, which is a pretty good deal imho. It all depends on your good content, dedication and knowledge. You CAN grow your page without needing to go dirty and risk a ban. 7. Buying pages I've been professionally trading FB pages for years now. Here are some tips for people new in this trade: Always ask for reach stats. If you read the first article you know that reach is the most important aspect of a FB page. You should ask for post reach graphs, stats, and confirm it yourself by asking the page owner to add you to page as an analyst if you have doubts. If reach is below %1 for most posts, DO NOT BUY. That page is a bot graveyard. Buying a page with no posts is like buying a house without seeing the interior! Stay away from sales like that. It is a common scam technique to delete all posts so that reach and engagement stats are not known to the buyer. If you are planning to change page name and URL ask the seller to change them for yourself, THEN complete the sale. Some pages have this weird bug that it shows you can change the name, but actually you can't. It might be hard to convince the seller, but better safe than sorry, right? Watch out for dumpers! Some smartypants begin spamming the page with unrelated, clickbait, and other malicious content once they put the page on the market. They do it so they make a last buck before they go. Watch out for this kind of events, because by the time the page is handed over to you, it may lose a great number of fans, and even worse, the page may get closed all together because of all the spam. When it comes to international pages, watch out! When it comes to international likes, I can guarantee that almost all the likes that come from India, Pakistan, Egypt, Indonesia ARE BOTS. Especially India. These countries house the biggest like farms in the world. If you see these countries in page stats, you can be sure that they actually are from BOTISTAN. There are many pages on the market that has hundreds of thousands of likes, but no more than 10 addmefast post likes per post. What's worse is they are sold for no less than 4 figures. That's blatant scam. Still I'm opening this thread not to harm business of those people, but to protect honest webmasters. I tried to keep it short and simple but there is a lot to say I hope I've been helpful, I'll add new parts from time to time. Good luck with your ventures! *: Bigger the page, lower the expected reach. A page with 50k likes is expected to reach at least %10 of its audience with each post while it is normal for a page with +500k likes to reach only %3.
Great info. Ive had pages for years that Im just monetizing now. I cant seem to get my ad cost down below 7 cents. Help a FB Ad newbie out with some audience tips? Ive obtained some tools to dig deep and create highly target audiences, but 7 cents is my floor. Arrgg. Thanks for the tips
Hey Oleman, Great post! I've seen a lot of FB page owners who fall into the trap of over valuing their facebook page by the number of likes they have without factoring in Reach. Refreshing to see your post. I'd love to connect since I'm always searching for strong partners on facebook for our site content. Drop me a msg or a quick email at moq.hasan (at) gmail (dot) com when you get a chance