It’s mostly companies and party officials who buy these Facebook pages. Anyone with a Facebook account can create a page on the social media site for free. But some people buy these pages from people who have already created them, especially pages with numerous “Likes.”
“Due to the forthcoming elections and rivalry among parties and companies, the business of selling and buying non-political pages with many ‘Likes’ is on the rise,” said Abdullah Shad, owner of Shad page for buying and selling pages.
“Page prices differ according to the number of their ‘Likes’ and activities. The price of a page with 10,000 ‘Likes’ is 10,000 to 25,000 dinars, but that of a page with 50,000 to 100,000 ‘Likes’ is $100 if its activity is low, $300 if its activity is medium, and $500 if high. Pages that are active and have one million ‘Likes’ sell for nearly $10,000,” Shad told Rudaw.
“The number of ‘Likes’ is not as important as the extent of activity of a page. We sold a page that had one million ‘Likes’ but was not active for $600. We sold another page that had 270,000 ‘Likes’ but was active for $700. I have a friend who has a page, and a politician has offered him $8,000 to buy it, but he doesn’t want to sell it,” he added.
Shad has been doing this kind of work for two years. He said he has so far bought and sold nearly 1,000 pages. He said he had created some of these pages himself.
“It is mostly the children of authorities, big companies and party officials who buy active pages with a large number of subscribers. These people continue to sponsor these pages so their activity remains high,” Shad explained.
Shad does sponsorship work for these pages too. He said he makes nearly $2,000 monthly doing this kind of work.
Some companies buy these pages in order to introduce their products for early promotion among a wide audience.
“In addition to the jobs we advertise on our page, some companies sometimes ask us to advertise active pages,” said Hadi Amin, head of the vacancies section on Aweza website.
“Companies want to buy pages that are active, real and have more than 100,000 subscribers,” Amin added. “The page should also have the option to change the name. Pages that have these conditions sell for $300 to $600.”
Parliamentary candidates also buy pages
Candidates for Iraq’s parliamentary elections in May have made the sale of these pages even more popular.
Mohammed Jaff is a barber from Erbil. In addition to his job as a hairdresser, he sells and buys Facebook pages.
“So far, I have bought and sold more than 30 pages. I have made a lot of money doing this,” he said.
“Their prices range from $10 to $10,000. There are pages with more than two million ‘Likes’ which have been offered $20,000, but their owners wouldn’t sell.”
Jaff said he had bought a page for one politician for $6,000 and makes a profit of $50 to $200 each time he does this.
“In general, it is the authorities, companies and people who have made the creation and sale of these pages a profession, who buy these pages. Nowadays, it is the entities and party candidates who have made this business more popular,” Jaff said.
“I sold an inactive page with 40,000 ‘Likes’ to a candidate running for parliament for $150. The page was actually worth only $50,” Jaff said.
“In general, culture, comic and romantic poetry pages are popular because they are active and the number of their ‘Likes’ can be increased easily. But political pages do not sell,” he added.
Instagram pages also sell well.
Shad said: “Instagram pages, because the number of their ‘Likes’ cannot be increased through sponsorship and other big pages, sell well if they are active and have many followers. There was an Instagram page with 700,000 followers that sold for $2,500. Active pages sell for $8,000. If the Instagram page has over a million followers and is active, it sells for more than $10,000.”
“These pages sell well in Erbil and Sulaimani. But in Duhok, Instagram pages sell better,” he added.
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