The real value of a facebook like

Diddlysquat.

Yes, heresy, but I firmly believe it is so.

Imagine you ran a book store. Or any store for that matter.

What is the value of a window shopper?

Or a browser, for that matter?

Nothing, untll the person spends money in the store.

Facebook likes are the same. A like means nothing unless there is some value exchanged.

If it costs the ‘liker’ nothing he will do it with no investment on his, or her, part.

Worse is when brands pay the ‘liker’.

I recall many years ago we ran an opt in campaign for a big client. He had a target of, say, 10,000 opt ins. We created and ran this great promotion. In a matter of days we’d met and overshot the target many times over. Congratulations all around.

6 months later we reviewed our opt in list and found that nearly everyone who’d signed up had opted out.

They’d signed up for the promotion, you see. Not for any brand engagement.

I see the relentless drive for ‘likes’ in the same vein.

If it costs me nothing to like a page, or if I am paid to like it why wouldn’t I?

People who are professional browsers in bookstores spend hours occupying space, catching up on their reading and not buying anything. Worse, if they turn away interested buyers because of their behaviour.

So the value of a browser is nothing. May even be negative.

But the value of a buyer, that’s a whole different thing.

And that’s the game marketers need to focus on.

Start with the end game in mind. Which is, say, book sales/day. To achieve that book sales I need X number of browsers. To get X number of browsers I need Y number of window shoppers. And so on.

The point is, don’t start with likes as a metric. Nor even ‘engagement’. Start with a tangible revenue oriented target. From there work back wards to the softer measures.

That is your consumer engagement value chain.

Then your likes have a value. They are a step in the buying journey.

Else they mean nothing. Just because it can be measured, doesn’t mean it has value.

There’s an old saying (?) ‘What gets measured, gets managed’. The corollary to that is ‘Just because it can be measured, doesn’t mean it has to be managed’.

I do see fewer brands chasing likes. And that’s a good thing.

That I like!