What is the value of getting a Facebook like?

[NeilD]

Is requesting people to like your facebook page of any real value for a small business? Is it better to encourage people to write a comment/testimonial about your product or service on their own status with a link to your website and/or Facebook page?

I have a lot of clients getting more and more into the concept of social marketing so I am now wondering how best to guide them in the right direction with regards to Facebook specifically

[MagicDude4Eva]

There is no value if you artificially inflate your like count through competitions or purchased likes in any other form.

Your social engagement across FB, Twitter, G+, Pinterest etc should come naturally. You should start engaging with your customers/users via the social channels. Social media provides a good extension to deliver content really fast to your audience.

It helps to have a social marketing strategy - the simplest form is to measure engagement via retweeting/sharing or commenting. More complex is to measure conversions originating from social media. Ideal scenario would be that you post something on social media which does not advertise something on your main site, and traffic results in conversion because of the engagement.

[BrianCrouch]

Thank you. And good point: there really is something comforting, as a consumer, in seeing your question visible and published. We all have that suspicion that the email is going to be ignored or misunderstood and end up becoming a waste of time.

I worked at a large audio brand that was getting daily mentions in social venues for purchases or usage inquiries. Our RNT knowledgebase pretty much had every answer they were looking for (easily searched via any engine), but that didn't stop these customers from asking their questions on Youtube or Twitter.  I had to hire a full time rep just to handle that side of the service issues, and that was just for English inquiries.

[polarking]

Very well written Brian. We find customers really want to put more eyes on their questions than just sending an email to whomever manages the info@example.com.

We have found that pictures are very valuable in creating a Buzz for customers to comment and hopefully end up on the site.

Assigning a dollar amount is very difficult. In our case if you use the metric Social it would appear we are wasting time with Facebook. Time on site generally increases with a good post on Facebook

[matbennett]

It depends on what you are trying to achieve. I'd agree that a lot of the time people are requesting likes without any real purpose, however they can be very useful too.

A like to your faceboook page is like joining your mailing list. It gives the page owner a way to contacting people with their message (albeit it through the filter of Facebooks edgerank algorythm). Very useful indeed.

A like of your page/site makes that visible to the connections of the person who likes the page (again, some - depending on edgerank). Useful as it gets your site seen.

[BrianCrouch]

Election year answer: It depends, and it's complicated.

For your local small business clients: Is there a specific communications or customer service strategy that could be augmented by the tactical presence of a  Facebook page? Is their marketing outreach already inclusive of content generation, maintaining branding impressions and buzz? Is there a competitive need in the target market for social proof: that is, within the sphere of competitors, would having a high fan count for the page tip the scales in your favor?

Is the product or service high touch, one that requires a lot of followup, training or service? Does servicing outside of consulting time affect revenue negatively or positively?

From an SEO standpoint: if a customer is willing to write a testimonial for you, that's more valuable than a like, to be sure. Why can't they do both? A good testimonial is content for the Facebook page as well.

From a search standpoint, there's little doubt that a consumer researching a business is going to probably check out the Facebook page (for certain kinds of small businesses) when that appears in SERPs.

Social media is best thought of as a customer and public relations vehicle, rather than a marketing vehicle. Customers want a way to be heard and want to know if they can trust you for the long haul, which is the CR side. And social media (not including paid ad campaigns) just doesn't scale in the way that marketing does: it's closer to a loyalty program than a net sales lead generator. The PR aspect is that if something you do, say or produce is interesting enough to get widely shared, you can get that publicity at a very low cost.

I think consumers are getting a bit jaded about being asked to like a new FB page.  So there has to be determination of whether there's enough of a promotional value to justify an incentive program. Again, just ask if it fits within their big-picture strategy.

Cheers,

Brian