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Facebook Fraud [video]

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Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#51

Post by sharkweek »

cliveowen wrote: post #32
mullingitover wrote: post #21

I found a way to dramatically improve facebook. Around the beginning of the year I unfollowed every single friend and page, so my newsfeed is completely empty. Now when I want to know what my friends are up to, I go check out their pages, essentially going from a push feed to a pull. It gets me out of the empty crack addiction-esque cycle of going to the news feed and being disappointed/bored with the lives of my fri…

I honestly think Facebook was better when it was just a directory of profiles, then it decided to completely change the nature of the service by focusing entirely on the newsfeed. It sure made sense in terms of users engagement, but the value I get from it has declined steeply over the last few years. Now I only use the messenger app.

The "profile" meant something back when Facebook first started - in fact one of my favorite things was when the news feed would announce things like "Friend1 updated his favorite movies" - then I would click and go see what they added.

I can't even guess when the last time was that I looked at someone's information directly on their profile on FB

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#52

Post by calbear81 »

notlisted wrote: post #26

Nice video. All true. I have performed tests with the same ad budget ($20k) and target audience for Google and FB. FB ROI was negative. Google ROI was 400% (travel space). The only thing that seemingly "works" has been buying likes by advertising. This video should help educate my clients of the utter uselessness of those too. This brings up the interesting question of the general (non)value of a lot of mobile advert…

Good questions raised about the UX issues that contribute to fraudulent clicks and installs but I take issue with the generalization that only bottom of the funnel, high purchase intent ads are valuable.

Startups generally have a bias towards doing things that they can measure accurately. This leads to heavy reliance on highly attributable channels like AdWords since you can target people who have expressed high purchase intent. What most companies don't do is look closely at multi-channel attribution models and look at how multiple exposures across different media types change purchase behavior. Perhaps someone who is exposed to two display ad driven messages prior to seeing your Google ad is 2x more likely to click and 4x more likely to purchase vs. just being exposed to your Google ad alone. I'm not saying that's what you will see, but you should be curious to understand those effects.

We tend to generalize based on our own experiences. I also don't think Facebook ads work well in many cases but I also can see brands that are doing a great job or run innovative campaigns that get their message across effectively so I know Facebook works if you get it right. Similarly, many folks give banner ads, mobile CPA ad networks, or TV a shot and see poor outcomes without knowing whether it was poor creative, bad media planning, loose targeting parameters that contributed to the poor outcomes.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#53

Post by lstamour »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #45
kpao wrote: post #12

We learned this last year when we started paying for ads on Facebook. Our app is in a niche market (Flight Simulator for mobile devices), I assumed that very little people would click, but we saw a constant increase of about 1K likes/day. After looking at the analytics, I decided to cut Brazil and India. We had a huge disconnect between our App Store country data and those ads, and we also saw no noticeable change in…

It shouldn't matter if ads are priced on the basis of ROI instead of per-user (which it is). The ads are only as cheap as they are because they're being farmed, if they weren't they would be much more expensive.

But at least that would be some honest math up-front. And perhaps fewer ads.

I mean, how it stands now you've compounded the problem given the fake engagement and following you've built and how that changes which posts get promoted.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#54

Post by mschaecher »

As someone who has helped massively grow a handful of businesses with Facebook being a significant channel, part of me wants to say "Yep, FB advertising is bunk. Everyone stop!"

But in reality I'd be saying that in a weak attempt to make my own Facebook advertising more effective.

Lemme tl;dr this in three bullets:

- It's far easier for non-sophisticated advertisers to waste money.

- The ad platform is pretty technical and nuanced

- Notice I didn't mention facebook in the previous two bullets? That's because it's true for anywhere you buy ads, even print or flyers, radio or direct mail.

So to reiterate: For any given paid advertising channel, it is far easier for non-sophisticated people to waste money as it is to see significant ROI. Any place you can buy ads is far more technical and nuanced than people who don't live and breath it could every imagine.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#55

Post by tlogan »

Good video and but nothing new. One workaround is to create custom audience based on emails you have. That helps a little.

And I would like to point out that he might be wrong about engagement of "fake like" audience. Some farms will give you fakes which are very much engaged (I guess to prevent detection of fakeness).

The most interesting thing is to see whether Facebook will do something about this.

On one side, this definitely helps their bottom line. On the other hand, it erodes usefulness of Facebook as an ad platform.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#57

Post by protomyth »

rhizome wrote: post #49
protomyth wrote: post #48

Would it change anything about the problem if the initial distribution of a post would favor people with fewer overall likes and people who had previously engaged? It seems like a win for the poster, but a loss for Facebook since they wouldn't get more money for payment to promote the post.

FB already has the money, why should they care about engagement? What is the value proposition for that if goodwill is not a primary driver? That is, is there any indication that FB isn't simply penny-wise and pound-foolish?

I don't really expect Facebook to do anything since it seems like a profitable churn. I was more interested in the system as a whole and what small changes could correct it. It seems like a really weird, random sample taste makers thing right now.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#58

Post by AznHisoka »

345723 wrote: post #4
nonsequ wrote: post #2

I'm interested in learning more about this. Does anybody have any thoughts? I think that, by intentionally posting unlikeable things, he guarantees himself 100% spam likes. On something that's actually likeable, these spam likes might be contained to a reasonably small proportion of likes. But what is the size of this shadow population of click farm users on Facebook? For these countries with large click farms to be…

I've worked on all sides of this: brand, agency, buying likes, selling likes, etc. The reality is this: everything in this video is 100% true and it's been this way almost since the beginning. But most marketers are just checking a box. No one really cares about the budget spent on social ads. It's a line item next to display and TV. I should say, this isn't just true with Facebook. The same thing happens on Twitter…

I love the BS that Twitter tells you about the ROI of their ads. "70% of people who follow you will buy from you".. DUH... That's because the people who follow you are for the most part your EXISTING customers. The other 30% of course are bots.

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#59

Post by mikeg8 »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #36
lingben wrote: post #6

If you haven't yet watched Derek's earlier video about "the problem with facebook", you should: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g because in it he lays bare several fundamental structural issues about facebook which 99% people don't realize. Well worth the watch. Unless fb changes drastically, it will die a surprisingly fast death.

The OP's video is great and identifies a real problem that should be solved. This particular video is naive and pretty bad in my opinion, really disagree.

I thought this video was spot on as well. Can you explain how/why you really disagree with it's premise? I'm curious to hear your points...

Re: Facebook Fraud [video]

#60

Post by pjc50 »

doubt_me wrote: post #56

Now people understand why G+ wants real names? Still doesn't stop the fake accounts but at the same time it pretty much patches it. I think

You can easily enough come up with a million "real" names for your fake profiles. Meanwhile G+ penalises people with genuine but surprising names.
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