Facebook clarifies, but are 'Likes' worth paying for?

BANGALORE, INDIA: Being on Facebook isn't an obligation, fundamentally because it is free. But for those who swear by the number of 'likes' and 'unlikes', it is an obsession, even if it comes for a price.

If the latter were to read a blog on New York Times, they could celebrate it. Facebook is apparently promoting only the paid content, according to Nick Bilton, a New York Times blogger.

"I paid Facebook $7 to promote my column to my friends using the company's sponsored advertising tool. To my surprise, I saw a 1,000 percent increase in the interaction on a link I posted, which had 130 likes and 30 reshares, in just a few hours," he writes.

Facebook charges a fee to promote a post, which appears in News Feed of a select people. Though there is nothing unethical about the charges, what is worrying is the fact that Facebook might be completely focused on paid posts. "It seems as if Facebook is not only promoting my links on news feeds when I pay for them, but also possibly suppressing the ones I do not pay for," says Bilton.

However, Facebook on its website has issued a clarification stating that the aim is only to maximize engagement and interest.

"There have been recent claims suggesting that our news feed algorithm suppresses organic distribution of posts in favor of paid posts in order to increase our revenue. This is not true. We want to clear up any misconceptions by explaining how the News Feed algorithm works," Facebook stated.

It goes on to state: First, in aggregate, engagement - likes, comments, shares - has gone up for most people who have turned the Follow feature on. In fact, overall engagement on posts from people with followers has gone up 34 pc year over year.

Second, a few data points should not be taken as representative of what actually is happening overall. There are numerous factors that may affect distribution, including quality and number of posts.

News Feed shows the most relevant stories from your friends, people you follow and Pages you are connected to. In fact, the News Feed algorithm is separate from the advertising algorithm in that we don't replace the most engaging posts in News Feed with sponsored ones.

So, it's better to know that your Facebook posts don't reach everyone, while paid content is optional, it has a larger reach. So, are you willing to pay to get more Likes for your Facebook post? Let us know