Dare You Bite the Forbidden Fruit of Promotion?

Desipite your relentless hustle, your last release was a flop. With no energy and limited funds left, you begin to accept that there may be nothing else you can do.

A siren song begins to pierce through the static hum of the internet.
Glaring, the offer dares you.

"For $75, This Guy Will Sell you 1,000 Facebook Likes"

Considering how hard we've worked for the Likes you have, this is a pretty fantastic deal. Previous ad campaigns have been measured in Likes and email list sign ups so this seems like a more direct method of getting the results you want.

"But wait, there's more!"

How about buying profiles in bulk?

BEN ZHAO: Right now on the black market, you can actually buy and sell bundles of Facebook account credentials, tens of dollars or hundreds of dollars for hundreds of thousands of Facebook accounts.

So you could buy a legitimate Facebook ad for $240 and get 240 Likes, as Pizza Delicious did. Or you could drop the same amount of cash and get 10,000 "Likes" from fake profiles. Seems simples, but there's much more to this than meets the eye.

CHACE: For example, one company that sells likes showed me this Nashville country singer who was a client. She had a lot of likes. But then I check what city the fans are from, and they were primarily from Cairo.

What would you do if you found your your favorite band was buying Likes? How would this change you opinion of the band? Would you still listen to them?

How would this change your opinion of a local band you've never heard of?

...

With Facebook's initial stock offering coming tomorrow, the $100 billion dollar value of Facebook rests on the value of Likes and the profiles.

But the value of Likes is shaky at best. Pizza Delilcious got a $10 return on 240 likes, so in this case each Like is worth $.04. Not worth it. But if we were to pay the same $240 for the 10,000 fake facebook credentials would we earn $400?

No.

This is a smokescreen. Fake profiles don't buy tickets to your show, nor do they force their friends to listen to your new EP. Only true fans do.

You can't buy loyalty in bulk.

When the cash runs out, the only people left are your true fans. Even with a couple million dollars, the mercenaries will only be as loyal to you as you pay them.

But fans will always be loyal to Motorhead as long as Motorhead is loyal to them.

"Likes" and followers are are only as valuable as the fans behind the numbers.

Integrity, attention and quality are the currency of artists.

Are you investing or spending?