How many FaceBook likes do I need to start making a difference?
-
Just started the social scene.
We have a FaceBook page
https://www.facebook.com/SMSPro.Safety.Management.System
Only about a year old, and until two weeks ago, we had about 8-10 likes.
Then I started working on getting likes (please like this page if you can).
Question: How many Likes do I need for Google to start counting this as significant?
Would also appreciate any comments on FaceBook page to help.
-
On a related note, keep an eye on the YouMoz blog. Next week there's a post coming up about how to market the experts in your field who aren't necessarily a big deal on the internet.
-
Outstanding, William! Simply outstanding! Thanks for pulling my head out my rear.
-
In that case, I probably am even more convinced that FB isn't the right place for you. For many B2B companies, I usually lean towards LinkedIn and Twitter, and focus on producing high value and high credibility thought leadership content. That type of content is valued more highly on Twitter/LinkedIn, whereas FB is more about some form of entertainment.
There are a few things to keep in mind when thinking about how social affects search rankings. First, you have 'personalized search,' which means that you can potentially influence the search results of the small group of people who are in your second degree connections on different social networks -- this works extremely well on Google+ for certain types of things, but I think it works somewhat on other social networks as well, and may get better in the future. The second type of influence goes beyond second degree connections, and results when you have viral content that triggers lots of legitimate social signals (+1s, Likes, RTs, faves, etc.). In order to see positive outcomes from this type of thing, you need to create something that is ACTUALLY awesome. To get the results from personalized search, all you need to do is very basic stuff. To get the much larger results of hitting beyond your 2nd tier folks, it is not just a numbers game, and I never recommend it unless you are prepared to really put your back into it. In fact, you should check out this post by the Oatmeal (formerly of SEOMoz) to see the answer of how to succeed on FB.
-
RE: "Funny, OMG, weasel and rant topics will generate more traffic than any sort of biz generation."
This is why I failed to see the value of FB in the beginning.
I really don't get this. Promises of Madonna showing her panties will get more Likes and traffic than any legit business.
I have a competitor in Australia who is a new entrant into aviation safety software. My site (http://www.aviation-sms.com)has considerably more content, links and time in existence than his. aerosdb.com.
Competitor ranks higher than me, and I see that he has a lot of tweets and FB likes. Hence the start of this "Social Networking" crusade.
And the reasoning behind the question: how many FB likes do I need to make a difference. Maybe I should put a campaign promising to show Madonna in her panties. If they Like me, I show a picture. (just kidding).
-
In my opinion, FB likes don't generate any direct search engine benefit. However, if you have content that people share and those shares lead to visits - then you have something of value - maybe.
Funny, OMG, weasel and rant topics will generate more traffic than any sort of biz generation.
-
btw, thank you for taking time to respond!
-
most of my clients (decision makers) are older generation and not FaceBook users.
These are managers in the aviation industry. I don't think FaceBook will be a prime marketing strategy. I just need to get some Google power from it because Google is evaluating the "social" aspect and using it to help determine rankings.
-
Facebook is one of those areas where you are better off (in my opinion) by counting the human feedback you generate, rather than the SEO ranking. In other words, you are literally creating conversations with lots of people, so you should be evaluating the topics of those conversations (are they relevant? positive? interesting?). You should also be reviewing the source of new fans, names, and whether or not they go silent, etc. From there, you should look at the "reach" within Facebook itself to see how many unique people your posts are hitting. If none of this appeals to you, then FB is probably not going to be a good investment, but if it does, then FB should be awesome, and you will probably get some SEO value out of it as well. Someone smarter than me might be able to tell you exact numbers that start driving Google results, but my own experience has been that if FB isn't valuable to you for some non-SEO reasons, then you are unlikely to have strong company buy-in for very long.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Why not just use an alias if the only change is a different domain Name?
We are rebranding our store with a new name. We have purchased a NewDomainName. Can I just make the "Old Domain Name" an alias for the "NewDomainName"? The site will not change in any other way than having a new logo. This is an e-commerce site with over 100 categories of artisan made products. So once we move the site, the old domain will be empty. Thank you Stephen
Branding | | stephenfishman1 -
The brand drop down doesn't seem to be appearing for any brands in google.com.hk. Is it something which needs to be set up and registered, or automatically rolled out by Google?
In google.com.hk SERPs the brand drop down doesn't seem to be appearing for any brands. Is it something which needs to be set up and registered, or automatically rolled out by Google? And if so is Google just slow rolling out in this part of the world? Thanks
Branding | | seanfhutchinson0 -
Need a full web design TEAM.
I'm an SEO manager for a company in Los Angeles. You can see our website here: https://opiates.com. I've been at the company for about 3 months, and in that time we've almost had our website re-done twice. It is badly in need of an overhaul in terms of design and navigation, but at the same time we can't afford to lose the organic traffic that we currently have. Does anyone have recommendations for web development firms that can take on a BIG project and work with me to preserve the SE traffic that we currently have? Thanks
Branding | | Waismann0 -
Facebook name change error
I keep getting "The Page name you entered does not meet our guidelines. Please review our Page name policies." My name change is well within policy. The page has about 400 fans. I am literally changing a minor aspect. Getting rid of a plural word. Any work around since facebook's site is not working for this?
Branding | | Atomicx0 -
Company's Official Facebook Page Doesn't Appear In SERP
Hi, Our official company's facebook page doesn't appear at all, in all serp. I'll elaborate all in details here below. We have an official Arabic Company Facebook page with more than 1.9k likes, the page itself is very active and constantly being updated by a person in charge of the Facebook page. We also have an official English Company Facebook page - runs and operated in the same method mentioned above. when I search for my company's BRANDNAME in google.com.sa - both official facebook pages (arabic + english) don't appear in the serp. I've went through all the way to end of the results pages - I couldn't find both pages anywhere. On the other hand, when I search for the brand name + facebook, like this: BRANDNAME Facebook I can find both Arabic and English facebook pages in the 1st page one right after the other. Anyone can help me out here? I'm desperate for solution. Thanks 😉
Branding | | JonsonSwartz0 -
Webmaster tool's "Content Keywords" advice needed
I am looking in my webmaster tools and under the "Optimization Tab" >> "Content Keywords" and I find my website's list of what I assume words Google notices mentioned frequently. I want to know how I can better manage this and get more relevant key words to show up. Because the website I am referring to is a college lifestyle magazine we have various topics that range and I could see confuse Google.The top word is college which is great but some of the others seem a little random and could definitely be more relevant. Any tips on how to improve this? webmaster-tool.png
Branding | | CEOLaser0 -
Can we publish two guest posts on one domain with same pen name but different linking website?
Can we publish two guest posts on one domain with same pen name but different linking website? Actually I have been doing guest posts with pen name “Jane Andrew” for “abc.com”(bit old and well performing website). Now I need to post for a new website “xyz.com” on some old domains (where I have already published my articles) so the situation is that I want domains and pen name to remain same but linking website would be different. I had few questions in my mind regarding that and I would be grateful if you help me getting the required information. Is it right from SEO, branding and marketing point of view? How Google interprets this? Is there any harm for the old well performing website or for the new one? And also both websites are owned and managed by the same owner.
Branding | | shaz_lhr0 -
Need advice on old brand names
A couple of years ago my company put all effort into one brand name, closing multiple sites with good names. All traffic going to ie OldBrandName.com is now redirected to www.newbrandname.com/OldBrandName. Here our customers are being told about the fusion/merge and we are linking to the key-products of OldBrandName, on our new age. We have 4 of these pages for 4 different brandnames. These pages still get a lot of traffic. Now to my question: how do I get as much juice as possible out of these OldBrandNames? They have high page authority and many inbound links. But I would like to pass the juice and the links to our frontpage or other relevant pages. What is optimal? Should I just redirect all the traffic to www.newbrandname.com? The redirects was made approximately 2 years ago. We are in the travel & leisure business, so customers often visits numerous times a year, closing deals 1-2 times a year. All 4 OldBrandNames have their own specialities (family, low budget, off-the-beaten-track, wellness). Any recommendations on how to approach this?
Branding | | alsvik0