tl;dw version: Those "likes" you buy from Facebook are kinda worthless.

More here, including a not-so-compelling response from FB.

Comments

[Billy Jones]

I've known this for a very long time. And it's not only Facebook. For example: this post has +2,461 Google plus clicks yet it has only actually been viewed by the 3 users who have permission to view the actual page. Go ahead, try it, you can't see the page, so why does it have +2,461 Google plus clicks? I've another with over 56,000 Google plus clicks and only 200 or so page views.

I often tell other Facebook users not to like my Facebook posts as it serves no purpose other than to pump up egos. Liking drives ZERO readers to any web page nor does liking make the post more prominent. Liking is another way of keeping users as Ed Cone likes to put it, sharecropping on Zukenburg's plantation.

And it's not just Facebook serving false impressions for a fee. Having bought Google Adsense several times I've never gotten the number of actual click thrus I paid for.