Assignment-2: Case Analysis Project - A Study of Facebook Click Farms.

ASSIGNMENT-2: Case Analysis Project

Analyzing the metric of "likes" on Facebook as a Social Computing variable, and its impact.

Answers follow the Questions from the assignment are written below:

• In what way are “likes” on Facebook interesting form of a “social computing perspective?
  "Likes" were the initial core metric of Page or Content reach towards users. It represented, on a face value, the level of adherence or agreement that users displayed towards the Pages and Page Content that users preferred to interact with. However, the platform of Social Media Marketing is fast developing, and the trends in Social Media update, change, and adapt every few months to an year, at most.
  
  Hence, one could surmise, in the context of Social Media Marketing in 2018, Facebook likes have gradually become less relevant as a metric of measuring a Page's success in reaching relevant users, with meaningful engagement.
  
  From a theoretical perspective, in the context of Social Computing, 'likes' on Facebook can be understood as a way of measuring how many potential users interact, and quite literally, LIKE a Facebook page. It is an interesting new way for businesses and social personalities, as well as regular individuals to understand and receive a high level feedback from other users who use the same platforms, at least in terms of expressing interest or preference towards a particular product, service, organization, or individual.
• What is a click farm, and how do they produce “likes” on your Facebook page? What is the cost involved for this service?
  Click farms are organizations enabled through Programs & Servers, and/or cheap manual labor, who generate fake profiles and sell "likes" by multiples of 100s or 1000s, for a nominal price point.
  This is managed by spending either on outsourcing long hours of manual profile creation and liking of client pages by organizations which have access to cheap labor or inexpensive internet/server space. 
  There are also models of like generation through exchanging likes for different clients by organizations and people, who work around the clock with their teams, generating profiles (genuine as well as fake) and paying by the click rates.
  Costs for 100 likes could go as low as USD10 for 100 likes, but it varies depending on the Click farms, that individuals or organizations tie up with.
• How can an informed consumer find out, whether likes on a particular page are likely to be manipulated?
  
  There are multiple metrics which can be analysed to measure the relevance of likes on a Facebook page. Some of them include, but are not limited to:
  
  1) Geographical relevance of users liking the Page;
  
  2) Demographic relevance of users liking the Page;
  
  3) Measuring interaction levels of users who have liked the Page, with Page Content;
  
                                                                      Source: Veritasium (2016)
  
  4) Also analyzing the data on the history of Page accumulating likes can be a measure of noticing if a click farm has been employed at certain point of time;
  
  5) Analyzing paid AdSpends on Facebook page by looking at the historical data of Like accumulation of Page is another way of analyzing relevance of Page's user community;
  
  6) Analyzing the level of interaction of users on the Facebook page, which goes beyond content liking, to actual engagement via comments, shares, and reviews could be a more labor intensive way of understanding the User-base relevance to the Page;
  
  7) Most significant way of understanding the relevance of Page likes on a commercial or public institutional page is by running activities like Sales Drive, Community Engagement Campaigns, and Feedback Campaigns which can give insight into relevance of the likes, by analyzing the level of engagement on such Campaigns.
• If businesses want to engage real customers on their Facebook page, what should they do instead?
  
  Relevant and Incentivized (not necessarily monetary incentives) content, which actually benefits the Consumer, or appeals to the emotional, social, or personal values of the Business' target audience should enable higher engagement and loyalty in following, as opposed to mere Like generation through Click Farms.
  
  1) Analyzing the User Community of the Business page using Facebook Analytics, and other Social Media Analytics tools help vastly understand the demographic, geographic, and socioeconomic distribution of users.
  
  2) Defining a relevant Target Audience for one's business, and targeting only the relevant Audience in Activation Campaigns forms the backbone of churning a relevant and meaningful online User Base for Business pages.
  
  3) Large number of "likes" are purely perceptive, in nature, and do not usually translate into sales. So it is increasingly being preferred to shift focus from numbers to 'relevance of numbers'. So, while a large user-base might reflect positively upon the Page, but it may not necessarily translate to Sales or Brand Engagement, which are usually the objectives of Businesses on Social Media.
  
  4) Another way of engaging real consumers would be to, and I quote an article from Social Media Examiner, "Examine Follower Growth to Identify Anomalies in Audience Behavior".
  
  5) Driving Users to Business Websites, and/or other Online Sales Points for the Business, from Facebook, can also act as a meaningful way of measuring engaged audience who are potentially real customers. Using Pixel based analytics to assess how many Users click of Activation Campaigns, Awareness Campaigns, Sales Drives, Event Ticketing Websites, and/or Contest Links from the Facebook page, and land on Third Party websites, is also a way of engaging Audience, and understanding relevant audience better.
  
  6) Engaging Users to provide feedback towards the Business, Brand, and/or Products, on and outside of Facebook. Incentivizing or gamifying Feedback is a powerful way of engaging Consumers, and getting real time useful data to calibrate future activities of a Business.
  
  7) Engaging Influencers, and Affiliates, to promote Brands or Products, is a powerful new way of engaging and earning loyalty from real consumers. Credibility of such Affiliates and Influencers largely influences Brand Perception amongst users.

Further reading on the subject done to come to such conclusions were:

1) Case Study of Creation through Execution of a Campaign done by Ministry of Food Processing, done in India: https://www.socialsamosa.com/2018/08/case-studythe-ministry-of-food-processing-social-media/

2) Analyzing Click Farms (Study based Article from 2016): https://dazeinfo.com/2016/05/28/facebook-click-farms-fraudulent-likes-hurting-brands/

3) An Interesting Read on A Case involving massive Fraud in Thailand using a "Wall of iPhones, and 3,500,000 SIM Cards" to generate a click farm on WeChat, the Biggest Chinese Messaging App. https://gizmodo.com/thai-click-fraud-farm-busted-using-wall-of-iphones-to-c-1796057368