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US state department spends $630,000 to boost Facebook ‘likes’
MUMBAI: The US state department has in a bid to boost its Facebook fan base has spent USD 630,000 on its Facebook strategy. The strategy has helped the state department in increasing its Facebook followers from 100,000 to more than two million in a span of two years between 2011 and 2013.
Describing the social media strategy, the US state department report stated, “The strategy is simple. It involves buying fans who may have once clicked on an ad or ‘liked‘ a photo but have no real interest in the topic and have never engaged further.”
Defenders of this plan argued that Facebook page discovery is difficult enough to merit the use of Facebook ads ‘to increase visibility.‘
The US state department may be content that after its six figure investment, each of its four Facebook pages had 2.5 million fans that were acquired through advertisements and viral photos, but a funds-rich social media strategy doesn‘t necessarily mean that they‘ve acquired loyal fans. The rate of engagement would be the judge of that.
No surprise here: Just two per cent of fans were found to be engaging with these Facebook pages, which also meant that there were few people who are actually paying attention to the U.S. state department‘s Facebook presence. And that has to sting, given that the department felt they were worth spending quite a bit of cash on.
“Engagement on each posting varied, and most of that interaction was in the form of ‘likes.‘ Many postings had fewer than 100 comments or shares; the most popular ones had several hundred.”
The State Department acknowledged in the report that buying fans wasn‘t a terribly worthwhile investment. Maybe that will be a lesson to everyone buying Facebook fans out there: The state department shelled out and look where it got them. Apparently you really can‘t buy popularity.
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
