Like for Like: Does it Work?

If you've been on Facebook for any length of time (and who hasn't been right?) you have probably seen some groups called Like for Like, Like Ladder, or Promote, Share, Like, etc. These groups allow you to post your Facebook pages, blogs, web pages, social media, etc., to the group in hopes that people will like your page. But do like for like groups work?

My curiosity got the best of me, plus I like to report about stuff like this to make sure my readers are informed. Because of this sometimes I have to jump down a few rabbit holes. Although I've been doing this kind of thing for a while now so I have a good intuition on which rabbit holes to avoid. So I joined a few of these types of groups and my findings are what this article is about.

My Results from My Jumps

The results were dismal. People are selfish when it comes to sharing back. And trust me I wasn't selfish. I shared, liked, promoted other peoples' stuff until my fingers almost fell off!

Within these groups, there were several occasions when people have posted something that is known as Like Ladders. The way this works is you will see a series of posts on the group that link out to other peoples' Facebook pages. These pages form a kind of Ladder, hence the name. You scroll down to the last entry and add your Facebook page. Then you are encouraged to like the pages of everyone before your post.

In several instances, I participated and liked about 30 pages in one session. I also saw from my email notification that several others were posting below me, easily 10 to 15 pages at a time. And this was a common occurrence per session. So it should follow that for each session, I should get about 10 or 15 likes on my Facebook page right?

Actual Results

If I was lucky I would get one or two likes. Most of the time however, I would get zero.

I spoke to other members of the groups and they complained of similar results to mine.

So there you have it folks. If you are thinking of participating in these types of groups, my results should dissuade you.

Will Facebook View It as Gaming the System?

Another problem I have with this, it's quite possible that Facebook will eventually discover these types of groups and ban them. I no longer participate in them but I have to decide whether I want to unsubscribe to them (I am only in two or three so it won't take long). I like to see some of the pages that are being included as this helps in brainstorming for content creation. There are however, other ways to brainstorm that will not associate myself with these groups. It's likely that I will unsubscribe.

Like for Like is Artificial

When I did my little experiment with the groups, I admit that I didn't really read through the pages that I liked. In fact, when you post a link to another page in Facebook, it shows a picture of the page and a like button right within the post.​

Oddly enough, by placing this button directly on the post, Facebook is actually encouraging situations of Like Ladders to occur whether they know it or not. If you are able to like the page directly from a post without visiting the page, people will blindly like pages.

Are You Engaged?

No, I am not asking about your personal life regarding plans to get married in the future. The question is about engaging in the pages that you liked. If the answer is no, then even if these like for like groups were legit, the likes are going to be worthless under Facebook's EdgeRank system. In fact, idle likes may even hurt you from showing up in the search results. And if you aren't engaging in these pages, you can bet that the people that like your page aren't either.

Like Ladder Group No Longer Active

In doing research for this article, I searched for the term "Like Ladder" in Facebook's search box. The first group that comes up is appropriately enough, called LikeLadder. You can see it here:

http://FaceBook.com/LikeLadder

Then I went to look at the rules of the group. You can find that when you scroll down a bit and on the left in the Apps section, it displays a link, "Ladder Rules". When you click on it, the following message shows:

Like Ladder's Campaign is No Longer Active

Hmmm. That's interesting. Is Facebook already cracking down on these kinds of groups? Although, if they were banned the group probably wouldn't no longer exist. Perhaps this particular group only runs campaigns like these once in a while. I don't believe they work so for me, no harm no foul.

What Do You Think?

I would love to hear what your opinion about Like for Like groups or Link Ladders. Have you had any experience with them yourself? Let me know in the comments below what your thoughts are on the subject. I will respond to any valid comments.