Facebook Fan Pages Spam Is a $200 Million Business

Spreading spam on Facebook Pages is a booming business of at least $200 million a year. And a single post that contains a spam link is worth from $13 to $58, depending on how many likes the Facebook page has, according to researchers.

Independent researchers found 30,000 Facebook Pages (which used to be called "Fan Pages") advertised on underground spam forums. Then they analyzed the Pages, looking for posts that contained keywords like "click here," "free," "wow," or "join," followed by shortened links.

In two days in July, using two servers, the group of Italian researchers, led by Andrea Stroppa, Carlo De Micheli, and Danny Di Stefano, went through almost 700,000 posts and found out that almost 37,000 of those were spam.

"We've seen that every day there are at least 20,000 posts of wild spam pointing to e-commerce, fake news, affiliations, porn and often scams," Stroppa told Mashable.

The six researchers, who months ago shined a light on the fake Twitter followers business, studied various underground spam forums and found that for Facebook Pages with less than 30,000 likes, spam posts can be sold for as much as $20 and as low as $8 (the average is the aforementioned $13). For pages with more than 100,000 Likes, posts can cost as much as $100 dollars, and in some instances, for pages with millions of fans, the price is more than $200.

Facebook bans Pages administrators from posting advertisements. In fact, according to Facebook's Pages terms of service, "third-party advertisements on Pages are prohibited without our prior permission."

Facebook spam, while not as pervasive as email spam, is a growing problem, according to experts. Facebook said in 2012 that only 4% of the content shared on its network is spam, according to The Wall Street Journal, while more than 70% of email is spam, as recently reported by Mashable.

"Social media spam isn't yet quite seen on the same level as email spam." said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior security researcher at Kaspersky Labs. "The problem will continue on growing until there's a bigger crackdown on businesses that are offering services to spam Facebook."

If spam keeps spreading on the social network, it could eventually hurt its business, not only because there are people that effectively advertise on Facebook without paying the company, but because users might be annoyed by spam and leave the network.

"There's a financial incentive for Facebook to address the spam problem. For one, people may stop using the service if the spam problem is too severe," explained Schouwenberg. "Secondly, as Facebook is looking into further ways to better monetize the platform they'll want to have the least amount of spam possible. Otherwise users will start grouping the legitimate ads together with the spammed ads, which will reduce the value of the legitimate ads."

Stroppa and the other researchers included a statement from a Facebook spammer they spoke to on Skype who explained how he's benefited from Facebook spam without ever being caught. (Stroppa declined to identify the spammer.)

"Facebook doesn’t ban us simply because we generate the content on Facebook itself. Everyday I materialize funny and interesting content full of phrases and so forth that is shared and liked by thousands of users," he or she reportedly said, according to the researchers. "Without the Fan Pages Facebook would be an empty place. Tell me, how many links do you see shared by your friends on your timeline everyday? You see? The answer is simple."

According to Stroppa, though, Facebook isn't doing enough in fighting this problem and might actually be turning a blind eye to it because, in the end, it might not bother them that much.

"Facebook doesn't have a couple of 100 Euro servers like the ones we have, and can monitor in real time. Facebook could fight these if it wanted," he said.

Facebook declined to comment on the research, simply sending the following statement:

"Protecting the people who use Facebook from spam is a top priority for us. We have developed a number of systems to identify spam and stop it from spreading, and we have mechanisms in place to quickly shut down Pages, accounts, and applications that are found to be in violation of our terms of service. We also offer tools for people to report Pages and posts that might be spam. We will continue to improve our spam-fighting systems so we can to ensure that the overall level of spam on Facebook remains low."

Using LinkedIn Groups To Become Influential In Your Industry

Last week, LinkedIn announced that its popular Groups feature was getting a complete redesign. LinkedIn has also released statistics illustrating how popular LinkedIn Groups have become and how important it is for businesses to create a LinkedIn Group themselves. By creating a LinkedIn Group, businesses can start and join conversations about their industry and, potentially, become influential, gaining themselves a reputation for good knowledge and sound advice.

New Groups

The new LinkedIn Groups are more streamlined and easier to customise. Group managers and members with administrative privileges will be able to make their groups stand out from each other by giving them a distinct, industry-relevant look. LinkedIn has updated the feature (at least partially) due to its popularity:

There have been more than 2 million Groups created around almost every topic imaginable — from entrepreneurship, philanthropy and careers to social and digital marketing. These communities have become places where our members are exchanging and sharing their experiences, business knowledge, interests and ideas with other like-minded professionals daily.

LinkedIn also revealed that “there are more than 200 conversations happening each minute across LinkedIn Groups and more than 8,000 Groups created each week.” The new look LinkedIn Groups will be rolling out to LinkedIn’s English speaking members over the next few weeks.

Creating a Group

Creating a LinkedIn Group is very easy. Linked has released a slideshow advising its users on best practices, which you can find here. The company advises that you make your Group profile attractive, interesting and informative so that potential members know what the Group is about immediately.

Your Group can be either open or closed to search. If open, anyone can see the content and it’s more likely that people will join; if closed, only members can see the content. You also need to create a unique voice, one that your members will understand and appreciate – this is now easier thanks to the new Group streamlining options.

Of course, you need to promote your Group across all possible social media channels, as well as promoting all your own content in the Group. Perhaps LinkedIn’s best piece of advice is that you should be able to adapt your Group depending on what members you attract and what conversations they have.

LinkedIn also advises that you use the Group to find and promote influencers and brand advocates but, as I’m focusing on using Groups to become influential yourself, I won’t go into detail on this point.


Becoming Influential

Creating a Group is actually a very important step in the process of becoming influential in your industry on LinkedIn. As the data above shows, LinkedIn Groups are very popular and, if you create the right one, you’ll probably be inundated with members, all starting their own interesting conversations.

Most importantly, and rather obviously, you need to chose a niche for your Group that you are a complete expert about. Work out what your particular niche is and design a Group around it. As soon as you’ve set up your Group start sending invitations. Make sure that your Group appears interesting and attracting in your invitation emails.

You should also organise your Group so that members and potential members receive regular, insightful emails. By sending out regular emails, not only will you build up your Groups membership, you will also show yourself to be informed and interesting. A large and active Group means an influential Group creator and, by actively contacting members directly by email, you can be at the forefront of the conversation.

You also need to make sure that you post on the Group regularly yourself, as well as contributing to other conversations. Ask your Group members questions and answer the ones they have asked. Even if a question posted on the Group has been answered already, see if you have anything to add. Keep your content diverse, both in subject and style, in order to maintain an entertained audience.

LinkedIn Groups are extremely popular and, thanks to the new updates, they will become more popular still. As the conversation on LinkedIn Groups is focused on business and industry, a proactive company can take advantage of the readymade and intelligent audience on LinkedIn by driving conversation about their own industry and, potentially, their brand.

Have you created a LinkedIn Group? How is it going?