What Is The Real Value Of A Facebook “Like”?

December 18, 2012 - Last Modified: March 29, 2014 by Kevin Gao

Recently, Forrester Research ran a case study on four major brands (Best Buy, BlackBerry, Walmart and Coca-Cola) to find out how Facebook “Likes” translate in sales, attention or recommendations.

Here are two of their findings:

Facebook fans are more likely to buy, discuss and recommend.
The value of Facebook fans is in their eagerness to recommend.

And here are some suggestions from the Forrester study:

Adapt the results to your brand.

All brands are different. For example, over 70% of online US adults have bought a Coca-Cola product in the last year, compared with 6% who have acquired a BlackBerry. Recommending a BlackBerry is different from recommending a Coke, just like turning a consumer into a lifetime customer is more important than a one-time purchase.

Target your Facebook fans.

Your fans are some of your most important customers — they purchase more and recommend your brand. Target your customer retention marketing toward these important customers.

Determine what drives your Facebook fans.

Find out what moves these people to push them through your sales funnel. For example, one of the main reasons people engage with brands on Facebook is to get discounts and promotions. Provide this to your target customers in a way that generates more sales.

Don’t Fall Into This Trap

Here’s a common misconception about Facebook: oftentimes, marketers assume that a “Like” actually means they have:

Great content
People agree with their posts
They have nailed the market in social media

These are all false assumptions. A large fan base may indicate an increased brand popularity, but unless you can turn these numbers into profits, 100,000 fans on Facebook don’t mean a thing.

Here are three questions to determine the worth of your fan base:

1. How Did You Get Your Fan Base?

If you’re running campaigns that are giving away free stuff, chances are that part of your fan base doesn’t really care about your brand, they’re just in for the free stuff. So, the value of your community is lower than another company who built their community from satisfied repeat customers who are interested in their brand.

2. What Are You Selling?

If you sell clothes the monetary value of your Facebook community is probably higher than if you’re selling telecommunications services. Firstly, because no one loves telecommunications and also because people tend to buy clothes more often than they change their carrier.

Similarly, if you are a luxury brand with extremely expensive products – like Mercedes – you are probably not going to get too many sales through your Facebook page.

3. How Do You Leverage Your Facebook Community?

You can have a million fans, if you’re doing a poor job managing your community you aren’t going to reap the benefits at all. The value of your fan base depends on what can you do to leverage them.

Not only do you need advertising money to attract Facebook fans, but to genuinely engage with them you need some man hours and expertise. In order to fully leverage the value of your community, you need to run competitions, throw in special discounts, broadcast your posts effectively and respond quickly.

Determine The Worth Of Your Facebook Community

Facebook “Likes” mean very little, while comments are far more valuable. You cannot understand those who clicked “Like”, but you can get a better feel of those who left comments and engaged in the conversation. You shouldn’t rely on “Likes” as a measure for the quality of your work. The best indicators are critical comments made by users and the shares done on your posts.

Takeaway: if you are building your Facebook community the right way, your fan base is worth something. Your fans are more likely to recommend your products, increase brand awareness among their friends and buy from you over and over again.

{ 17 Responses }

Sam Billings says:

Facebook is getting dimmer and dimmer I guess and is not that much suitable for marketing purposes especially for sales.
Mikolaj Rutkowski says:

Unfortunately I believe that those days when one is able to purchase FB likes like any other services, their value has depreciated. If you look at likes numbers Facebook is deleting from different profiles, you can be shocked how many of them had been found irregular.
Alfred says:

Facebook is the simplest way to connect to your audience. For certain businesses it is enough to have a Facebook page and no own website. Besides FB became so popular that it may soon bring more traffic to your website (if you have it) than Google.
Akhilesh says:

The value of a like can be calculated as: value of a like= Total likes/Unlikes per month*(Likes per day* 30)(Average Clicks/total likes)*conversion rate*Average Conversion Value Total Likes: It is total number of members associated(likes/followers etc) with your social media account. At Facebook, it is Likes of your page, Unlikes per Month: It is the average number of fans who "unlike" or unfollow you. Links per Day: Average frequency to post links, Average Clicks: Average number of clicks on the links to your site you post on your social media accounts. Conversion Rate: Conversion rate of your website, from visit to lead or sell to lead. This can be an overall average, but for increased accuracy, use the conversion rate measured from traffic coming from the social network you're calculating. Average Conversion Value: Conversion is the action you've used to measure CR for. It could be average sale price or average lead value.
- Kevin Gao says:
  
  Interesting formula Akhilesh! Thanks for sharing. :)
Mark J. says:

Great Advice! I'm just starting out with Facebook marketing.
- Kevin Gao says:
  
  Good luck with that Mark!
Preston Price says:

Very well said. If I may add. I think building a fan base from whatever source is simply the beginning of your social media relationship building. From there you start marketing through other means to achieve desired sales.
Jacko says:

Very good topic Kevin, I have heard that an email subscription can be as valuable as $10/year. Using this metric how much is one like worth? If you calculated the likelihood of someone who likes a page will eventually convert into an email subscriber then I could see a correlation, maybe. Other than that how can you determine how much money YOU will make from a FB like. Maybe mark z and facebook can calculate how much THEY will make but I don't think there is any legitimate metric to say a like = $this amount. I think the value is equal to a RETWEET and that's about all.
Chase Frazier says:

I could not agree more with you. If you adapt the results to your brand and target your Facebook fans correctly, then you will achieve success. Great advice and keep up the good work.
Tauseef Alam says:

Hi Kevin Facebook is a great tool for brand building and keep your customer informed about the latest happening. My experience says if you'll post new stuffs regularly which interest your fans, chances are much higher people will like your post and will share it with friends. Good pictures & Informative content makes wonders. Don't only promote your products on FB rather help customers with solution.
Nishadha says:

Although it's great if you can drive sales through Facebook, I think it should be used more as a brand building tool. A loyal and active community can do wonders for your brand name.
Glen Mitchell says:

Great article! FB likes are like a first meeting for anything to come of it trust and a rapport needs to be built.
Ryan Biddulph says:

Numbers mean little Kevin, on social media sites like FB or anywhere. Super points! How you interact with people makes all the difference in the world. Chat your Likes up, friend them and connect through your platform of choice to develop stronger relationships and benefit both parties. Thanks!
Justin says:

Well said Kevin. I check to see who liked my fanpage and often times I will friend them as well. Building trust and a sense of closeness with my readers has helped my blog tremendously. Take Care.
Dennis Marshall says:

I learned a long time ago that having a ton of Facebook fans means nothing. It's somewhat great for social proof but don't expect any engagement from fans you paid for or traded a like for. Those big brands are dishing out big bucks to get their fans so I'm sure they're monitoring what's going on in the backgroung.. Great post...
- Kevin Gao says:
  
  Thanks for sharing Dennis!

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