Facebook advertisements are increasingly popular among companies seeking to gain an online audience. However, it is a tad bit surprising to note that entities such as the State Department also indulge in extensive Facebook campaigns. The Department apparently spent a whopping $630,000 to gain more Facebook likes.
As a result of the huge amount of money spent on social media advertisements, State Department’s own employees started expressing discontent over it. The agency’s inspector general was quick to take note.
The chief contention of the employees who complained against this method was – getting someone to ‘Like’ a Facebook page doesn’t translate to an active user; in fact, it doesn’t even mean that the page has acquired a user who may have anything to do with the said page.
According to the IG’s report, “Many in the bureau criticize the advertising campaigns as ‘buying fans’ who may have once clicked on an ad or ‘liked’ a photo but have no real interest in the topic and have never engaged further.”
Despite such contentions, the agency spent $630,000 on bumping the Facebook likes, taking them from 100,000 in 2011 to 2 million in 2013. Similarly, the State Department’s foreign-language pages were able to muster up to 450,000 likes as a result of the campaign.
Very few of these likes translated into active users who would actually engage on these pages. Most users simply like the page and then forget it for good, since they are not directly concerned with it but like it anyway, thanks to Facebook ads.
Courtesy: Washington Examiner
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