The State Department spent more than $630,000 on advertising campaigns to boost the number of Facebook “likes” for the agency’s pages on the website, according to a report released by the agency’s inspector general.
Between 2011 and March 2013, the agency’s Bureau of International Information Programs used the funds on advertising to increase the number of fans for each of its four Facebook pages from 100,000 to more than 2 million, according to the May report.
The program was initiated after the bureau expanded the agency’s presence on social media by setting up Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, and blogs targeted at foreign audiences, the report states.
The report found that many employees in the bureau were critical of the advertising campaigns and felt that the agency was “buying fans” who may have once clicked on an ad but have never engaged further.
Defenders of the initiative argued that advertising was needed to increase visibility because of the difficulty of finding a Facebook page using the website’s general search tool, according to the report.