What is the value of getting a Facebook like?
-
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
-
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.
-
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.
-
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 [email protected].
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
-
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.
-
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
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
-
Videos perform poorly on facebook...why?
I have a facebook page with 42,000 Real fans. Images, screenshots, links, questions, etc all perform well. But videos get 0 interaction. If I get 5 likes that is saying something. Why would facebook not send out my videos to people? Is there a way to increase them? It is very frustrating to post our youtube videos to get no response. My fans are most 13-30 yr old gamers, so videos should be right up their alley.
Social Media | | Atomicx0 -
Facebook Likes gone through the roof
Howdy, We have seen our Facebook Likes increase by a staggering 20k in a week. At the beginning of last week we were sat at around 21k and it has been steadily increasing, but just 7 days later we now have 42k - Has their been some sort of algorithm change for this to happen, or should I be suspicious that something is not quite right? Thanks, James
Social Media | | Wedideas0 -
How can I find the most liked, tweeted, and +1'd URLs on a domain?
As part of a content audit, I'd like to identify the most popular content on a domain. I've tried Google Spreadsheets + API's from the services, but the call limits have stopped me as I can only check 50 URLs at a time. Does anyone have any tips on how to do this? I can get the list of all pages on the site with Screaming Frog, but then how do I find metrics on those URLs? Any tips or tools would be appreciated!
Social Media | | brianspatterson0 -
How to embed on a web page a box "tell your friends on facebook what you just purchased"?
I saw this on amazon's ordering page. Is it possible to put this on any given web page? I would love to see this on my ordering page.
Social Media | | Juergen-1194810 -
Merging 2 Facebook pages
Hi Everyone, I have a client who has 2 Facebook pages for the same business. One of the pages has 300 likes and the other 1200. They do not want to look the likes. Is there a way to merge to pages so that the likes are not lost? https://www.facebook.com/SanPedroApostolCordoba https://www.facebook.com/colegiosanpedroapostol Thanks
Social Media | | Carla_Dawson0 -
Buying Facebook Likes...
I have been approached numerous times by these companies claiming to provide hundreds if not thousands of 'real' Facebook Likes. Has anyone have had any experience with them?
Social Media | | dhidalgo10 -
Best practices to add Facebook comments to wordpress blog?
Our website (noahsdad.com) has a very large and active Facebook group (http://facebook.com/noahsdadcom). Often there are more comments on the Facebook posting of a link, than on the blog post itself. I try to get people go and leave comments on the blog, but they don't get it. So I'd like to try to find a way to get Facebook comments to transfer to our site. I"m not sure the best way to do this....either via a plug in, or via these instructions https://developers.facebook.com/attachment/Comments_Best_Practices_FINAL.pdf/ I'd just like to get it going..and not mess up the comment's I have now. (Also not everyone has Facebook, so I'd like them to still be able to comment the 'old' way (name/email). Hoping someone can help point me in the right direction with this. Thanks.
Social Media | | NoahsDad0 -
Where is the best place to put your FB 'like' and G+1 buttons??
Do you guys think there is a more strategic place to place these buttons? below the fold, above, in the top nav menus...?? I would love to hear your thoughts..
Social Media | | robertrRSwalters0