Many people believe social signals help increase their search engine rankings and/or conversion rates. Some of those people buy likes, shares, etc. for that reason.
> "What is the incentive to fake-like advertisers on facebook?"
Perhaps people who offer those social-seo services control thousands of robot-facebook accounts and they want their robots to seem like real, active users? It seems possible that they would automate some random activity (in this case liking virtual bagel's ad) while they're waiting around for orders.
As I say, paying for likes is nothing new, but in that case he didn't pay anybody but Facebook, that's what makes it confusing. Though your hypothesis is plausible - even though liking random non-related stuff would make one less like real person for me, it very well might make it more "active" for whatever algorithms are used by facebook or SEO types, and thus more valuable, at least in the eyes of SEO types.
What looks real to you doesn't determine the value of the profile's likes because the screening isn't done by people like you. A brand-new profile only liking one brand is very easy to filter...
Many people believe social signals help increase their search engine rankings and/or conversion rates. Some of those people buy likes, shares, etc. for that reason.
> "What is the incentive to fake-like advertisers on facebook?"
Perhaps people who offer those social-seo services control thousands of robot-facebook accounts and they want their robots to seem like real, active users? It seems possible that they would automate some random activity (in this case liking virtual bagel's ad) while they're waiting around for orders.
Just guesses.