The Value of a Facebook Like

We all know by now that we are submerged in the social media age. There's no escaping it, it's everywhere and in everything we to do. And while it started out as a personal way to stay in touch and express one's self, it has morphed into essential business uses as well. While that can be intimidating, it has equal potential to help grow and maintain a small business if used correctly.

Businesses 'Like' Facebook

The relationship between Facebook and businesses is a dynamic one, especially for the small and local. Businesses can engage with consumers based on individual relations, Facebook's dedicated users (Users who spend way to much time on Facebook, guilty as charged), through local community groups and through location targeting. This gives Facebook a huge potential for exposure through anyone of these routes. Combined we find ourselves as just a small piece of one of the largest networks ever designed.

The Power of the 'Like'

We as consumers enjoy feeling like we are making a difference, even in the most superficial sense. You see all kinds of content across Facebook so what do you do? You go ahead and 'like' something. Sometimes those likes are put into posts meant to make you laugh, educate you or make you feel like you're doing charitable work. But how about putting those likes in a place where it helps someone? Not just any someone, but a local small business owner. By taking the time to like and share posts from local businesses, not only are you showing your support directly, but you are also opening the door for all of your friends to see it too, and their friends, and their friends.

What is a like worth?

A like is worth a little bit larger of a viewership, or audience. So as a marketer working around Facebook daily one like of a page can be worth as much as $5 if committed and of authentic audience. On an individual post a like can be worth as much as $0.50. Comments are around the same, and a good comment when placed properly can be worth far more in a marketing strategy. Did you know likes could be so valuable to your friends and neighbors business?

Each and every affiliation can be tracked and is tracked enabling search engines to bring content from the back and pull it to the desired market. Each click increases market share, so if you wanted to get paid to like stuff that service is growing and thankfully we know that although there are plenty of fake accounts on Facebook. Only the real people really matter because although bots can help influence traffic, it is only core traffic that drives the brand and business.

Should you be getting paid?

Sure, why not. Let me give you an example. I post for a restaurant a brand new breakfast special, and share it to 2 groups. If that's all that I do I will get a percentage of the core followers and a small percentage of the groups exposure.

Have you noticed how posts aren't sorted by date?

They are sorted by an extremely complicated algorithm which is trying to understand and predict you as a consumer. So what happens if you stop liking a big brands like Coca Cola and instead like the local restaurant post. Over time that transition will evolve your Facebook. Literally the way you interact with branding on a huge social media platform.

So let's go back to my example above. This time, the post gets say 5 likes on the post and 1 like on each of the boards the post was shared too. Those likes open the door of exposure to a larger percentage of the followers of the page and the groups. So now instead of getting 150 views lets say, those 7 likes probably moved the views into the ball park of 250-450. What do you think a view is worth? Would you trade $3.5 for 200 views. Maybe not. But it's not hard to see that the contributions of others has a serious impact on the prosperity of a brand on Facebook.

Some groups have 10,000 people or more, so although the likes on the business page's posts itself are valuable, the likes in group posts are worth at least double. This is because their impact helps the post compete for a much larger percentage of a much large pie.

Have you ever seen a terrible post that has lots of controversy in the form of reactions and comments? Well those posts get priorities because of their involvement. Posts about all kinds of stuff can reach 10,000 views just because of a few die hard debators. So when doing your own branding, all publicity can be good publicity.

This article also ties into a prior one we have here called Microdebts, if you don't like the idea of a small business paying you. Think about it more organically, like when go out to a restaurant you always support on Facebook. Maybe your portion comes out with an extra strip of bacon or another small return of the favour. As I help you, you help me way of thinking.

So next time you're on Facebook, spread the love and know that people notice!

Thank you for reading, please like my Facebook, and comment in anyway :)