Savvy Marketing: What's the Power of a "Like" and Does It Actually Translate to Revenue?

photo credit nevinbuconjicdotcom

This last week I spent some time onsite with a client training one of their new team members in the basics of social media for business.  One of the most common questions that comes up in my line of work is the question about the value of the "like" on business social media.  Let me tell you right now:  even my high-end hospitality clients have rarely been able to get a clear response on this from all their research and investments in professional PR firms who are supposed to specialize in this data.  

Here's the reality of it:  it's always changing and only just recently changed again.


Since Facebook is still the predominant social medium that leading brands use for marketing and by which they measure marketing endeavors (80% of Fortune 500 companies have active Facebook pages), this blog post will be largely based around Facebook practices.

It has long been a cherished belief that if one "followed" or "liked" a brand, they would be more likely to buy from that brand.  That attracting social media followers who liked your page would automatically lead to an increase in sales potential for the brand.   While studies support that the more a fan engages with a brand on social media, the more likely they are to buy, what is in question is specifically if simply liking a page automatically increases the chances that one will buy.  The answer is no.  However, if the brand is really paying attention, they can dissect how their fans engage with them and more specifically target their posts for maximum brand engagement and ultimately revenue.  But it's not as easy as one once thought, and over the last decade has become increasingly complex.

A recent study by comScore and Facebook found the following:

1.  Social media continues to be the gathering place for loyal consumers to a brand.

2. Simply "following" or "liking"  a brand's page does not guarantee brand exposure for the follower's friends, as once thought.   Facebook's algorithms determine what content shows up in a user's newsfeed, not always pushing it out to friends of followers. 

3.  Continuing #2 above, even with integrated, relevant engaging posts, because of Facebook's algorithms, the key fans who like the page (who may be more willing to buy the product or service of the brand) may not even see many of the posts intended for them because Facebook has filters that decide which followers see which content.  The only way around this is to ask your followers to default their settings to "see first" on your Facebook homepage (see our prior article on this), so that every post you make is seen by them or pay to boost one's post so it is broadcast to everyone.

So what's a marketer to do?

During the last decade of social media marketing, strategies were heavily into "Push or Pull Marketing" (trying to either push out marketing efforts or pull customers in).  The best current social media marketing playbook, however,  should combine new and traditional approaches, a service in which Engaging Inspiration specializes. 

Savvy marketers know that using the content of your fans and making them your Brand Ambassador is a top-notch effective way to get those "likes" working for you.  By paying close attention to your fans/followers comments, creating hashtags for your business/brand (or an event) and then following it on social media and then resharing their posts on your business page as part of your effective story-telling and engagement is a way to get those "likes" working for you.     

Further, exceptionally savvy marketers also know to pay extremely close attention to those who are loyal customers when they share their experiences, and they know that this dovetails into sales, revenue and service strategy for the company as a whole.   In summary, marketing departments are becoming increasingly closer to and a part of business development and non-marketing department employee training more than ever before.  The employees who actually provide service for the brand are increasingly a part of training that is a result of discoveries by on-top-of-it marketing departments, who know that their customers can also help shape their brand, not their brand shaping their customers.

For more information on leveraging your strategic narrative as it pertains to marketing and engaging "likes" on social media, contact us.
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Engaging Inspiration provides sparkling marketing, strategy and leadership consultation for the thinking special event and hospitality professional, designed to inspire and engage.