Social media has tremendously changed in the last couple of years. Today, you can use platforms like Facebook to share milestones in your life, pay your bills and run a business – yes, you can do all that on a single platform! Crazy, isn’t it?
Facebook has become more sophisticated in the last couple of years. When marketers realized how much users are on Facebook, they began using it for their advertising efforts. .
The emergence of Facebook ads helped brands connect with the right people on the internet. Everything was going well until shady marketers started taking advantage of it and began publishing deceptive posts.
These deceptive ads operate by publishing posts about seemingly innocent services like flower delivery only to lead users to websites selling diet pills and pornographic content.
Deceptive ads are making Facebook less safe and enjoyable space for users. Find out how Facebook is trying to crack down these deceptive ads for good in the article below.
Click Baits & How They Dupe You
Facebook has over 1.32 billion active daily users across the globe. With such a dense user population, it’s no wonder marketers love advertising on Facebook.
While there are plenty of good brands out there, there are still some that use cheap tricks to garner engagement. Engagement baiting has become a big problem on the internet – and it’s getting worse.
Shady companies troll Facebook users for likes by publishing posts that are completely unrelated to what they are selling.
And this is pissing a lot of people off.
Misleading advertisements publish seemingly innocent content like flower delivery services or even fandom posts that leads to a potentially malicious sales website outside of Facebook.
Image credit: Adespresso
Some of these posts promise free samples of products and services. These scammers draw people in with their seemingly credible looking profile and post that leads people to a website that will request for their credit card information.
Image credit: The Sydney Morning Herald
Once the embezzlers get a hold of your credit card information, they will proceed to deduct charges on your account without your permission – and you might not even get your free sample!
The emergence of deceptive ads is compromising Facebook’s safety as a platform and puts millions of users at risk of fraud every single day.
How Facebook Plans To Fight
Although Facebook already has stringent guidelines banning misleading ads, shady marketers are still able to dupe internal reviewers into believing their posts are legitimate.
Scammers use a technique called cloaking where they route Facebook’s review team to a website that adheres to the company’s policies. Once the post goes live, the link then routes users to a completely new website that sells diet pills, muscle building supplements, and porn.
Image credit: Fortune
To combat the problem, Facebook plans on adding more people to their internal review department. They will also integrate artificial intelligence into their security strategy to prevent scammers from gaming their system.
In a recent interview with Business Insider, Facebook VP for Ads Andrew Bosworth said “we are going after the worst of the worst. The people who are going to be affected this by this are not going to have defenders.”
Facebook is not taking the issue of misleading ads lightly nor should you. If you’re a marketer or a business owner who relies on Facebook for advertisement, you should also be proactive about reporting any fake ads you see on your feed to prevent them from disrupting everyone’s feed and browsing experience.
What Can You Do
Misleading ads are disrupting the advertising landscape on Facebook and even good-willing brands like yourself can take a hit. Soon, Facebook will roll out stricter guidelines that can make it harder for everyone to earn engagement – which is bad news for your business.
To help Facebook fight the existence of fake and misleading ads, they are relying on the community to report posts as soon as possible so they can take action right away.
You can review the steps in reporting a misleading ad on Facebook’s Help page.
Are your Facebook posts getting the engagement they deserve? Why not give them the boost they need by purchasing an impressive number of Likes from a tried and tested provider.
Bought likes can help you draw more attention to your post, making it lot easier to reach the right audience.
Think Before You Click
The sudden rise of misleading ads on Facebook is – and will – make it a lot harder for brands to reach the right audience.
Facebook is now doing everything they can to make their ad review process more stringent to make sure no misleading ad falls through the cracks and into everyone’s feeds.
To help solve the problem of misleading ads, you need to do your part and report them as soon as you spot em’ so Facebook can take them down before they victimize anyone.
You should also drive more attention to your original ads and buy a few thousand Facebook Likes from a tried and tested provider. Buying likes will draw more attention to your brand and away from these shady companies and marketers.
There’s no telling how Facebook’s ad landscape will change in the next couple of months. You should make sure your current strategy not only kicks ass but is also on the right side of Facebook’s guidelines.
