Facebook Advertising - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

rachel_mclean · Guru

Facebook Advertising

Eilef · Senior Member

I have used Facebook for other businesses and currently for my bookkeeping business.

I personally wouldn't start posting that to other pages, I would see it that your advertising your business for free from my business and would be blocking you and banning you from the page. Not everyone would do this mind but a lot of people would.

The key to effective Facebook marketing is timely posts, at key times of the day and everyday even on weekends. The post should add value to the reader. I am currently coming up with some posts that are in picture format as pictures trend better than text alone.

Video is the thing for Facebook at the moment so if you record a few videos and upload them from a platform called power editor you can schedule them months in advance. Get your friends and family to like and share and watch it go take off. With that said not all posts do well. Use the analictics to see what worked and what didn't. Your posts do not have to be all work related, the Facebook world likes to see the human side of any business.

Paid adverts can work and very cheap as well. For just £1 a day if your advert is right and targeting the right people you can in return get thounsands of views. The best thing to do is advertise your page and watch the likes increase, you then work on your posts and as the engagement grows you will find more people will start to turn to your business. Not all will buy and some will never buy but a lot more will start.

I would highly recommend searching Facebook for a guy called Jon Loomer digital he knows Facebook inside out, yes he try's to sell you webinars and courses but he has so much free information that is really good.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Have you been able to work out the costs v the gains for your other business via Facebook Eilef? Be interested over time to see the difference between the results for that one versus a bookkeeping business.

I agree with Eilef - I dont 'like' many who do advertise. I see a lot of my friends doing it - the worst ones are the 'like our page and you can winxxx' and the winners will be announced on our site on xx date - Ive checked a few of these out and never ever seen a winner announced.

In our area of business I wouldve thought it perhaps be better to use facebook as an add on, via information feeds from your website, rather than as a single tool. I do recall a few years ago a client of mine looking at advertising via Facebook but there was absolutely no sensible way of targeting people (they needed to target a certain age range in a specific area - it couldnt even do that for them) so they were paying for just an advert dump. Saying that - Facebook may have advanced over the years and now be much better at its targetted ads, although I rarely see any that are appropriate to me!

Rachel - are a lot of these clients who kept you busy one off pieces of work as I would thought there would be a regular income stream. First thing I would be doing is asking your existing client base for recommendations/introductions to other business people.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Cheshire wrote:
I do recall a few years ago a client of mine looking at advertising via Facebook but there was absolutely no sensible way of targeting people (they needed to target a certain age range in a specific area - it couldnt even do that for them) so they were paying for just an advert dump. Saying that - Facebook may have advanced over the years and now be much better at its targetted ads, although I rarely see any that are appropriate to me!

I think it has been much improved. You can definitely target a town and I think from there you can target demographics. From January I'm planning on targeting small business owners in a certain area with the ae, Got the idea when a salesperson rung me up about advertising my bookkeeping business on there.

Need to do a fair bit of work first, website needs a massive update and my current facebook page still refers to 111 Bookkeeping!! I just haven't made the time to work on either.

Eilef · Senior Member

The demographics now are very advanced you can target people from age to what pages they like. What interests they put on there profile and even down to what job they go and how much they earn.

Although I haven't found out how to target from earnings yet. They are currently offering live video feeds onto timelines but your page has to meet certain guidelines to be able to access and some features are still only available in USA.

I haven't got that info to hand as with my other business I could be having 4 or more adverts running at the same time, for different events or just the page. But by advertising for page likes was getting about 30 likes a day.

I am currently running paid adverts to push people to my website and do far it's cost me £8.93 I think it was now and 21 people have clicked the adverts to visit my website.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Hi Eilef,

its not the visits to your site but the conversion rate that matters.

That line is straight from Nigel Botterhill who is always pushing the power of social media.

you can claim a free PDF of the Botty Rules from here : bottysrules.co.uk/

Gives you Nigels potted history a few insights and opens you up to receiving emails forever but unlike the bulk of those "get your free report that we couldn't pay you to take if you knew how little was in it and then get deluged by emails" Nigels common sense insights are not too bad and their emails generally make quite good reading.

Signing up to get that book will not be a bad thing and reading it may end up changing your outlook on sales, customer relations and general entrepeneurialship.... I didn't agree with everything Nigel did in the book but overall, even if you find yourself disagreeing with something it is still making you stronger and reinforcing your business accumen in that you are seeing a method and in your mind improving on it.

Also, outside of the book I don't think that they get everything right. I've read one of their business blueprints and it was a very throw away sort of document without any real substance. Conversely they have some excellent material such as starting a business from nothing to sales within 24 hours (quite litterally a hall with the right people creatig a social media campaign, website, etc. all within 24 hours without a break).

I've not signed up with the entrepeneurs circle myself as it doesn't currently fit my business model (it may do in the future) but I know that we do have members who were at the NEC for the national entrepeneurs convention as how often do bookkeepers get access to two days of business advice plus (literally) thousands of business owners... Much better than things like ICB shin digs where everyone else there is also a bookkeeper so where is the business coming from?

Certainly if you didn't come away from the NEC with a few business leads then there would have been something seriously wrong.

Just a thought as you seem genuinely interested in social media and the new types of sales so Nigels book would be an excellent first step in the right direction.

Shaun.

Note that there is no link between myself and the entrepeneurs circle but I do think that if you are thinking about social media and customer relationship management then its well worth having a read of Nigels book. Note that his Americanised evengelical approach will not be to everyones taste. I wouldn't have thought htat it was mine but he does seem to possess a sort of infectious enthusiasm that is not a bad thing in business.

VinceH · Expert

"The demographics now are very advanced you can target people from [...] and how much they earn."

Good grief. Are people now putting that sort of information on Facebook?

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

VinceH wrote:
"The demographics now are very advanced you can target people from [...] and how much they earn."
Good grief. Are people now putting that sort of information on Facebook?

And the moral of that, Never underestimate stupid people in large numbers.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

I dont believe that they do - I think Facebook are doing what they always do and make an assumption of your salary based on the job title you have entered. that is assuming you have entered a line as to what you actually do. Although yes there are very stupid people out there who give their whole lives away and have half the world liking it!

Eilef - any advertising you do should be (at best) measurable in some way or other. Can you determine a split between those who click on your website from Facebook, or from other sources. Then are you driving them to the right pages - how long are they staying on a page, do they look at other pages? Then - how many of those actually buy (this should also be split as to where they have hit the site from. Otherwise you end up spending money for nothing. It might only be £8 now but that would easily be £800 - its all pointless if you get no sales.

VinceH · Expert

"I dont believe that they do - I think Facebook are doing what they always do and make an assumption of your salary based on the job title you have entered."

Ah, okay. That's a little less alarming.

"that is assuming you have entered a line as to what you actually do."

Well, I do have a largely unused Facebook account - though my personal information is very sparse, and in some cases not entirely true.

A quick check reveals that I have added my business name as a place of work, and entered 'Chief Pie Eater' as my job title. I wonder what they estimate my earnings to be based on that?

"Although yes there are very stupid people out there who give their whole lives away and have half the world liking it!"

Quite.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Hi Vince
If you are the Chief Pie Maker as well as Eater then your estimate income on Facebook is shown as a bunch of empty flaky pastry packets. Well only the mat nutters on Bake Off make their own! If you just eat them then bizzarely its 2m bitcoins per year - I have access to Facebook through by brother who has sold some software to them so I know what Im talking about!

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Dear Vince,

I appreciate that no position has yet been advertised but in anticipation of your rapid expansion I would like to apply for a position as junior pie eater with your firm.

I can of course provide supplier references from the Trocadero pie shop, Pukka Pie's and Gingsters.

I look forwards to your reply.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

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Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Nah, one at a time is amateur league Jo.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

And that's just the mid afternoon snack hey?!! But by 3am.....

VinceH · Expert

Dear Shaun,

Unfortunately, it should be noted that while my official title is Chief Pie Eater, tasks undertaken as part of that role not only include eating all the pies, but also obtaining the pies to be eaten and - most importantly - ensuring nobody else eats the pies*.

As such, the position of Junior Pie Eater is unlikely to ever become available at this company.

Wishing you the best in your search for a new career.

* Someone told me I needed to take LinkedIn more seriously, and add stuff to it... so a few days back, under experience I have added pie eating, obtaining the pies to be eaten, and ensuring nobody else eats the pies. These are, after all, very serious matters.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

I thankyou for your time and consideration and would be happy for you to keep my CV on file for future reference.

-- Edited by Shamus on Saturday 12th of September 2015 07:10:06 PM

VinceH · Expert

Unfortunately, I fancied a different kind of pie, and used the CV as part of its filling, along with an old sock, some sticky back plastic, an old washing up liquid bottle and an old VHS tape of Blue Peter episodes.

Eilef · Senior Member

Cheshire wrote:
I dont believe that they do - I think Facebook are doing what they always do and make an assumption of your salary based on the job title you have entered. that is assuming you have entered a line as to what you actually do. Although yes there are very stupid people out there who give their whole lives away and have half the world liking it!

Eilef - any advertising you do should be (at best) measurable in some way or other. Can you determine a split between those who click on your website from Facebook, or from other sources. Then are you driving them to the right pages - how long are they staying on a page, do they look at other pages? Then - how many of those actually buy (this should also be split as to where they have hit the site from. Otherwise you end up spending money for nothing. It might only be £8 now but that would easily be £800 - its all pointless if you get no sales.

Indeed you do need to measure it.

There are ways to measure sales via Facebook by adding code but I don't know how to do that and not really looked.

Google analytics also measures this sort of thing for you down to bounce rate, to time spent on a page per page.

it also gives list of keywords searched to find your site.

I know it's only £8 now and it will not go above £14 as that was the max I set for the two week period which ends soon.

It was more of a test to see if my targeting was correct and that I'm more interested in the 4,857 people the advert has been shown to Then how many sales or hits it gets.

But then after all nobody really knows why people like a page, it's don't down to them being interested, it could be competition checking you out so your figures could be inaccurate anyway.

Eilef · Senior Member

What we also need to remember is people don't always act on first sight so the frequency is a good check mine is currently 1.15 so when this advert ends and I set up my page likes ad to run using the same targeting. People will see it and will think I seen that before and are more likely to click a like button than a link that takes them away from Facebook.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Eilef wrote:

It was more of a test to see if my targeting was correct and that I'm more interested in the 4,857 people the advert has been shown to Then how many sales or hits it gets.

But then after all nobody really knows why people like a page, it's don't down to them being interested, it could be competition checking you out so your figures could be inaccurate anyway.

Sorry have I completed missed something here? I have just read something else wrongly - so maybe Im doing it again!!! You are more interested in the number of people who have seen the advert than conversion into sales? Now you sound like a marketeer rather than a businessman. Sorry but thats not good! plus how can that be a test when you have no outcomes to actually prove anything one way or another - it might mean that 4857 people dont rate your product.

Yes there is an element of your competition checking you out but they shouldnt skew your figures that much.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Eilef wrote:
What we also need to remember is people don't always act on first sight so the frequency is a good check mine is currently 1.15 so when this advert ends and I set up my page likes ad to run using the same targeting. People will see it and will think I seen that before and are more likely to click a like button than a link that takes them away from Facebook.

So can you see that the same person has hit an advert or more than one advert on more than one occasion? If so you can then target them more specifically. Likes do not mean anything at all - all totally pointless if SOME of them dont turn into sales. Can they 'buy' your product via the like button or facebook without having to go via a link that takes them away from facebook? If so - then thats great, if not then again - its totally pointless.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

I'm with Joanne,

that makes no sense. Surely the ONLY thing that matters is conversion rate.

I'll take ten views and two sales over a ten thousand views and two sales every time.

Surely the latter scenario there is just vanity rather than business?

VinceH · Expert

"Google analytics also measures this sort of thing for you down to bounce rate, to time spent on a page per page."

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Google Analytics is flawed. It's method of recording stats depends on Javascript, which means people who don't allow their scripts to run aren't included in its reports. They probably drop cookies, too, and use some information stored in them - but because Google Analytic's scripts don't run here, I can't see if they do (but expect so).

If I visit a site that uses Google Analytics, I don't get included in the figures.

As an overall percentage of people browsing the web, the number of people doing what I do at the moment is fairly low. However, I seem to be seeing more and more instances reported in tech news sites of dodgy adverts (for example) being used to push malware on people - sometimes on otherwise legitimate sites - and I think it's only a matter of time before an example of that has a huge effect on everyday folk and/or becomes headline news. And if/when that happens, a lot more people will wake up and think smarter about security and privacy when web browsing.

Your web server will have the ability to keep very detailed logs of visits to your website - though whether these are automatically made available to you may depend on your hosting service. Those logs are recorded by the server when it feeds pages out to visitors - as such, there is no Javascript involved, and every visit is recorded.

These logs can be analysed to provide the same sort of information that Google Analytics provides - but because they don't rely on Javascript, are a lot more accurate.

"it also gives list of keywords searched to find your site."

Also recorded in the logs.

Eilef · Senior Member

Shamus wrote:
I'm with Joanne,

that makes no sense. Surely the ONLY thing that matters is conversion rate.

I'll take ten views and two sales over a ten thousand views and two sales every time.

Surely the latter scenario there is just vanity rather than business?

Conversion does matter yes but it needs to be your long term goal.

Research shows people generally buy from people they feel they trust. On average people want 7 interactions before buying from anyone, this may be Facebook adverts, emails, phone calls.

People le interact and feel they know you and when the time comes they seal the deal.

All business needs marketing and if you don't market your business you won't get very far.

The whole Sales Funnel is the same for every business selling from services like bookkeeping to shoes.

The more you get in at the top the more you will get out the bottom and conversion will then happen.

If you are only getting 10 in at the top you won't be getting many if any out the bottom. It takes time to build these realationships.

If you can get 10 views and convert 2 sales then you should be working for a multi billion pound company somewhere as even the biggest of the big cannot convert that rate.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

I (and Joanne) usually do work with multi billion per day turnover companies.

The example that I gave was an extreme one to emphasise a point about conversion rates.

I think that I posted somewhere on the site about the seven hits to get to a sale which I think (can't remember) is either Paul & Sarah Edwards or possibly Tom Hopkins. Might even come from something recycled by Nigel Botterhill. I'll have a look for it in a minute

It does not however get away from the issue that everything needs to be about conversion rates rather than just passing visitors.

Building a relationship with potential costomers takes more than them visiting a site x times.

Visiting the same site multiple times does not make me trust them anymore, only doing business with them does that. i.e. I check prices on many sites but only buy through Amazon and that was proven by others long before I used it. Thats why I find with bookkeeping word of mouth is the main sales channel.

Site visits should be about things like harvesting peoples email addresses (willingly, such as to gain a free report, not forced such as to get to the first screen) to send personalised christmas cards and information where you are not attempting to sell them anything.

Likes mean nothing. Those who visit your site will forget you. Putting yourself in peoples minds is a push rather than pull type of effort... But push with care over a long period as people are easily pushed away. (i.e. Christmas cards are fine but birthday cards are stalking).

You seem to be doing the right things but if you are taking the marketeers type approach you might want to remember sentence one, paragraph one, page one from their bible.... "Always be closing".

Don't accept that someone that visits your site "might" become a client but rather ask yourself always why the others who visit it are not converting to sales.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Eilef wrote:
Conversion does matter yes but it needs to be your long term goal. It needs to be short term goal as well otherwise you will have no business
Research shows people generally buy from people they feel they trust. On average people want 7 interactions before buying from anyone, this may be Facebook adverts, emails, phone calls. Oh please dont quote straight from the marketing mans book! Depends what is being sold and who is buying. Plus if thats an average then by definition some are much less and some are much more.

People le interact and feel they know you and when the time comes they seal the deal. As bookkeeper/Accountant this is true but it doesnt always take 7 interactions even in this business. 99% of mine have been after one meet - maybe Im just a good sales convertor (although I wouldnt put myself in that bracket!). Plus Ive had 100% success rate on my advertising (although i have no doubt that will change at some point - point is i know! Btw - I know some marketing can lead to nil data eg newspaper ads, unless of course you build in a manual method of monitoring even using simple methods like asking clients where they heard of your product/service)

All business needs marketing and if you don't market your business you won't get very far. But there is waste of time marketing...rubbish in...rubbish out and smart marketing. Some businesses self market without the need for an advertising spend, some have to spend large fortunes to sell anything, but I will guarantee that the latter will have every monitoring tool at their disposal to check and verify whether there spend is working.

The whole Sales Funnel is the same for every business selling from services like bookkeeping to shoes. Not true at all. The sale funnel theory can be applied to most business that much is true but the funnel changes for each business. Some of the processes are stripped out for some of the businesses.
The more you get in at the top the more you will get out the bottom and conversion will then happen. Absolutely not true. There is an argument for dump loads into the top and you might get some conversion, but as I said before rubbish in means rubbish out, so your percentage conversion actually drops.

If you are only getting 10 in at the top you won't be getting many if any out the bottom. If you put 10 in and get 10 out then thats the best result you can get, so dont work on volume.....especially in this industry! For some others that might be ok. It takes time to build these realationships. As I said before - generally true in the bookkeeping industry, although Ive disproved that is the case all the time on several occasions. But my initial observations on your FB pages were relating to your other business.
If you can get 10 views and convert 2 sales then you should be working for a multi billion pound company somewhere as even the biggest of the big cannot convert that rate. Some small companies get conversion rates of better than 20%. Each company and each industry is different.
Just because people set something up to be a business doesnt actually mean they have a business. People can throw tens of thousands at their pet projects in the hope of turning a profit....sometimes the market is just not there or just not interested. As Shaun says and I alluded to it earlier - if a mass of people are visiting your Facebook page or site or showroom or whatever but then turning away without buying then you have to ask yourself why. Sometimes its cost, sometimes its the product, and sometimes it because they dont trust you, or maybe because its just a naff advert! But for each advertising campaign it should be clearly measurable with a drains up exercise to find out how improvements can be made to the product offering.
Of course you can just do market research and benchmarking instead of advertising to see how good (or not) your product offering is.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

I've only advertised in two places, Yell.com total crap and got zero from it apart from people wanting to flog me anything from electricity to water coolers! and a local monthly glossy magazine over 10 months., which resulted in 5 inquiries and 4 conversions. I got my money back (just) in "sales" but better than that I got repeat business this year from three of the four, and fourth one wasn't a repeat type client anyway.

I'm happy with that to be honest. I think with facebook its always going to be a lot of views with some likes but very little in the way of sales. I don't think Eilef's conversion from views to clicks is that bad really at just under 5%, and rates better than leaflet advertising. Although 21 likes isn't exactly jaw dropping, it does mean that with the maessage is then reaching the friends of the likers who may well be interested and also like the page and so on etc. And I don't think you can measure that.

Were you targeting small business owners or something different Eilef.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

VinceH wrote:

"Google analytics also measures this sort of thing for you down to bounce rate, to time spent on a page per page."
I've said this before, and I'll say it again: Google Analytics is flawed. It's method of recording stats depends on Javascript, which means people who don't allow their scripts to run aren't included in its reports. They probably drop cookies, too, and use some information stored in them - but because Google Analytic's scripts don't run here, I can't see if they do (but expect so).

Hi Vince

Not specifically related to GA, but how do you manage without Javascript? After you mentioned it a while ago I turned it off as an experiment, and it meant I had problems with just about every website I visited! Some things just didnt work when you clicked on them because it needed JS to complete the function. It meant turning JS back on for that website and in the end I gave up and turned it back on properly. Kudos to you for doing it but I couldn't be bothered with the hassle, which probably makes me an advertisers dream lol. Not that they'd get owt from me as I'm very rarely persuaded to buy something that I wasn't already intending to.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Leger wrote:
Although 21 likes isn't exactly jaw dropping

Morning John,

I may have mentioned this on the site before but I've come accross payments in clients books where they actually buy blocks of likes.

You pay some company and then suddenly you have 500 unique likes (I assume that gets spread over a few posts).

So, assuming that paying people to like you is quite widespread what does that actually say about the whole system of basing credibility of a post on its number of likes?

Right, just need to look up that company to see if they also do vote rigging, lol.

VinceH · Expert

My day to day browser is Firefox, so I use a plug-in called NoScript.

It adds a button to the toolbar, clicking on which gives you a menu from which you can see what domains are providing scripts to the page you are viewing, and an option to allow them, allow them temporarily, or (if you've already allowed them) an option to block them again. Below that is an entry for NoScript's own options.

So once you've installed it, the first time you visit a page, you may need to twiddle with which scripts are allowed, and which aren't, in order to get the site to work - if it's a site you use regularly, once you've established which scripts you need to allow, make them permanent/whitelisted, leaving any others blocked.

When you are visiting a site you don't use on a regular basis, you can stick with enabling the scripts temporarily - that temporary permission ends when you close the browser. (Not just the tab - the browser).

As a general rule, if a site isn't working, the starting point is to temporarily allow scripts on the same domain as the site. If it still doesn't work, then it needs one or more scripts from a third party domain - so it's really a case of looking intelligently at those listed and making a decision.

Slightly annoyingly, sometimes you'll allow a script and the site still doesn't work - but the reload (which enables the newly allowed script to run) will now show more scripts needed from other sources; the first script calls them up.

After a while, your whitelist builds up and you find you refer to the NoScript menu less and less often - at some point, that should become never for your regularly used sites, and then it's only when you visit somewhere less regular (or new).

VinceH · Expert

"I may have mentioned this on the site before but I've come accross payments in clients books where they actually buy blocks of likes.

You pay some company and then suddenly you have 500 unique likes (I assume that gets spread over a few posts)."

It's to make it look better/more popular to others, in the hope that they'll be proper sheeple and follow the flock by 'liking' it themselves.

A similar principle to:

Starting your invoice numbering at some arbitrarily high (and not round) number, such as 24187.
If you use a cgi 'web counter' on a web page, starting it off at a high number - but not 24187, because everyone knows that one now!
Making sure there is some loose change in your cap for people to see at the start of a day busking.
If you are collecting for charity, putting some washers into your collection box so it rattles and sounds like people have been giving you money.
And probably plenty more.

I must be an advertiser's worst nightmare.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Leger wrote:
I've only advertised in two places, Yell.com total crap and got zero from it apart from people wanting to flog me anything from electricity to water coolers! and a local monthly glossy magazine over 10 months., which resulted in 5 inquiries and 4 conversions. I got my money back (just) in "sales" but better than that I got repeat business this year from three of the four, and fourth one wasn't a repeat type client anyway.
I'm happy with that to be honest. I think with facebook its always going to be a lot of views with some likes but very little in the way of sales. I don't think Eilef's conversion from views to clicks is that bad really at just under 5%, and rates better than leaflet advertising. Although 21 likes isn't exactly jaw dropping, it does mean that with the maessage is then reaching the friends of the likers who may well be interested and also like the page and so on etc. And I don't think you can measure that.
Were you targeting small business owners or something different Eilef.

Hi John

Oh how I wish you had mentioned the yell one before signing up. They are a right old nightmare arent they! Their online presence is pretty rubbish - seems no logical order in anything so its a lottery where you pitch up on the listings.

Great that you are now in profit on the monthly mag....some of those are good, but some are terrible, again you have to pick and choose. We have one locally called a 'Passport' - not too bad when it first came out, its all local so it had articles and then adverts from local businesses so was worth a flick through with a coffee. Now its all adverts with the odd kiddies puzzle, so its no better than a short form version of the Thompson local yet the businesses who advertise in it pay a fortune!

Its hard the get the balance right but Im a firm believer in word of mouth, recommendations and networking. You can of course make facebook and twitter etc pay but it does need serious and regular input/interactions.

The earlier comments about FB from Eilef were relating to another business Eilef has, which he has mentioned on this forum before. I think the approach between his two companies would need to be very different as they arent related in their offerings in any way.

Did you know that not all peoples 'likes' come up in their friends feeds anymore. They all used to show but Facebook do not show all and obviously a lot of people now have different privacy settings so restricting some things further. Plus as Shaun says - there are companies out there who are paid to manipulate social media. But that said the best out there will get some great business from it by the way they interact with existing and potential clients and driving the buying behaviours.

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

VinceH wrote:
"I may have mentioned this on the site before but I've come accross payments in clients books where they actually buy blocks of likes.

You pay some company and then suddenly you have 500 unique likes (I assume that gets spread over a few posts)."
It's to make it look better/more popular to others, in the hope that they'll be proper sheeple and follow the flock by 'liking' it themselves.
A similar principle to:
Starting your invoice numbering at some arbitrarily high (and not round) number, such as 24187.
If you use a cgi 'web counter' on a web page, starting it off at a high number - but not 24187, because everyone knows that one now!
Making sure there is some loose change in your cap for people to see at the start of a day busking.
If you are collecting for charity, putting some washers into your collection box so it rattles and sounds like people have been giving you money.
And probably plenty more.
I must be an advertiser's worst nightmare.

Did you know its actually illegal for a charity collector to rattle their tins? Not many do!!!!!

I am an advertiser and sellers worst nightmare. I had a woman once say she could sell sand to the Arabs and tried to prove she could sell to me - she gave up after an hour.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Hi Joanne

Yell was a couple of years ago but I would never use them again.

FoxAccountancyServices · Expert

Cheshire wrote:
Did you know its actually illegal for a charity collector to rattle their tins? Not many do!!!!!

Yes! Shaking the tin is advertising it... madness!

VinceH · Expert

Citation needed.

I'd read previously that this practice was illegal (you'll notice I didn't originally say "when they rattle their tins" but "so it rattles." However, I've never been entirely convinced - so I've just done a (very cursory, 5 minute) search. The most authoritative thing I've found is this: www.raisingfunding.co.uk/street-collection-regulations.html which mentions "A ban on any collecting methods that will cause annoyance or nuisance to any member of the public" - which is a bit open ended, and it seems likely to me that what the individual local authorities deem a nuisance may vary from one to another.

Furthermore, that's specifically to do with street collecting, and doesn't mention collecting on private premises - that, I would think, is going to vary even more.

So I'm not convinced it's as simple as it being "illegal for a charity collector to rattle their tins" - I think there's more to it than that.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

VinceH wrote:
My day to day browser is Firefox, so I use a plug-in called NoScript.

Thanks for that detailed response Vince. I was using a Chrome plug in called Quick Javascript Changer, and you can enable JS separately to each websites, it wasn't anywhere near detailed as No Script. As I found that I had to do that with virtually all the websites I visited, I just ended up turning it off.

No script sounds a heck of a lot better, and I like the fact you can see the individual scripts to decide whether you want to enable them or not. 3rd party ones on a dodgy website would be a definite no no

VinceH · Expert

Just to clarify: I should have said what you are able to allow is the domains from which scripts are allowed. This isn't quite the same as 'individual scripts'.

For example, If wibbletastic.com loads (say) two separate scripts from its own domain, three from defoneeded.com and two from wewannatrackyou.com, you can allow wibbletastic.com and defoneeded.com, and leave wewannatrackyou.com blocked.

What you can't do is say "I want to allow this script from wibbletastic.com, but not the other one, and those two from defoneeded, but not the third."

But generally, by domain should be good enough.

YLB-HO · Guru

An interesting read.

I have diversified into furniture (!), to develop one of my interests in another area. The Accountancy is pretty steady, and my client are getting older as I am. I have reached the maximum number of clients I want and can manage. I do get a few new clients, to replace the client that retires, dies or calls it a day (or have been encouraged to go elsewhere as they are too high maintenance). But new clients always come from existing clients without fail.

What I have found interesting, is on my LinkedIn profile I am now a "retailer", which seems to have confused quite a few people as I am still an accountant in practice.

VinceH · Expert

Just as a follow-up to the reason for blocking Javascript the way I do, and not having Flash installed:

www.theregister.co.uk/2015/09/15/malvertising_analysis/