Is getting Facebook Likes one of your social media marketing goals?
(UPDATED: Sept 17, 2014) There are many ways to measure marketing efforts on Facebook. Getting Facebook “Likes” is just one of them.
For those whose goal is to increase Facebook page “Likes,” you might not know this but the stats that says “x like this” of your Facebook page comes from personal profiles that liked your page, not “Likes” from other Facebook Business Pages.
Facebook Likes from a Page
I signed in as Your Social Success and visited Chef Ivan Flowers’ page. It is showing that Your Social Success “Liked” Chef Ivan’s page. That only tells me that I have liked their page.
That “Like” from Your Social Success isn’t included in Chef Ivan Flowers‘ number of “Likes.” As of this writing, they have a total of 470 likes from people NOT pages.
Facebook “Likes” from People not Pages: Show me
This section of Chef Ivan Flower’s Page shows you where Facebook is pulling the “Likes.”. Again it’s from People NOT Pages.
It is also the same number of “Likes” that shows up when searching for them on Facebook.
Don’t you wish that Facebook would count Pages too? Yeah, I know. That’s on my “Dear Facebook” notes.
Your Facebook Perception of Influence
Growing the number of “Likes” on Facebook is what others equate to as growing one’s perception of influence. According to Vocus through a survey by Path to Influence:
“Perception of influence varies: 40% of SMBs [small and medium businesses] prefer a smaller but highly engaged audience; 27% would prefer a huge following with little engagement.”
What is your main metric when it comes to your business’ perception of influence? Do you focus on growing your likes or engagement? Whatever it is, align your tactical strategies to one and be great at it especially if you are a small business with limited resources to spare. You can’t be great at everything when you have too many social media marketing goals that you are trying to focus and work on.
If you are trying to grow your social media engagement, I wrote an article on doing social engagement on Facebook the right way. Posting almost every hour and being on the social media platform all day aren’t engagement the way Facebook looks at things using their algorithm.
What are you measuring on Facebook? Your turn!
The best thing about the “like” feature is your friends will see what you “liked” in their newsfeed.
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Right!
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Thanks much for the tips!
Thanks for taking the time to visit the site and comment Bridget!
Good point. I forget about all of the page likes.
I agree with Eileen. For us it it not about “Likes” anymore. We are more focused on how people engage on our posts as well as how much traffic is driven to our website as a result.
That’s a great strategy AJ.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Great question! For me it is actually a two-blade sword, because I love engagement but on the other hand it is also important to recognize that because only 16% of your followers actually see your post a higher like total will automatically means more fans will see your post.
The yin and yang of doing it right, Helena? 😀
Thanks for stopping by.
The metric has varied for me over the years. Currently it’s all about how much traffic Facebook drives to our website. But in past jobs, my company was more interested in building brand awareness, so getting the “likes” as well as shares and comments was the most important metric.
Right Eileen. It does vary company to company and over time. Nice thing about online activity is that we can (!) measure it.
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment.
For me it’s a mix…
Just pumping my numbers doesn’t help, but is needed.
I always try to have a mix of high quality likes (people that actually engage) and low quality followers to up my numbers (out of giveaways or raffles)
Thanks for chiming in Yvonne. One can vary it but focusing the focus to one goal at a time is helpful. You will be able to determine which of your tactical strats worked (and what did not work).
Ruby Rusine recently posted…Are Facebook Likes Your Perception of Social Influence Metric?