More “Fans” Are Better: Why You Want Everyone (and Their Mother) to Like Your Business’ Facebook Page
I can already hear the rumblings of controversy based purely on this title. Over the past few months, our social media division at Gibson Design Management and our subsidiary media company, OttoPilot Media, have been discussing objective ways to measure our social media efforts for our clients. This has included discussion of customized metrics for each of our clients based on business and marketing goals.
I’m going to say it, so argue away: having more people “like” your Facebook business page is better. This does not mean that you can just stop there. You still need engaging content and someone consistently monitoring and responding so that it is a conversational platform.
When I first graduated from college and worked in sales and marketing for NVR, we were taught that a large part of sales is a numbers game. If you don’t speak to anyone, and you don’t set any appointments, and then you don’t write any contracts, you’re not going to make any sales. However, the (qualified) leads that you generated and the more appointments that you had meant that statistically you would be more likely to achieve your sales goals.
Don’t get me wrong- it did matter that these leads were qualified and that I was good at my job. I wasn’t sitting down with 15 year olds who wanted to buy an $800,000 home. However, these interactions were one-on-one. It does not cost you any extra money on Facebook to reach 100 or 1,000 additional people via your page.
With Facebook, every time that you post, the number of people that post reaches is purely the number of people who “like” your page. If that number is larger, you have a greater reach and reach is an important metric. If your objective is brand awareness, having more people know about and like your brand is important. If your objective is more sales, you are more likely to sell something with a greater audience.
Author: Alexandra Gibson
Alexandra is the CEO of Gibson Design Management and Managing Partner of interior design firm, Gibson Design Group. When she's not busy trying to build an empire, you can find Alexandra riding a horse, giving back to the community, playing with her Scottie, McCord, or drinking a martini (preferably not all four at once).
Follow Alexandra on TwitterTags: Alexandra Gibson, audience, become a fan, branding, business page, conversation, Facebook, fan page, Gibson Design Management, like button, Marketing, ottopilot media, PR, Sales, Social Media, social media success, Social Networking
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 24th, 2010 at 2:04 pm and is filed under Blogging, Building a Culture, Business Development, Facebook, Gibson Design Management, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 24th, 2010 at 9:33 pm
What’s the scenario where more fans is not a good thing? Is this a question of fan loyalty to the brand/company… as in would it be better to have 100 loyal fans vs. 1000 questionable fans? I think you could make an argument that the 100 may be better as far as brand/company stewards (of sorts), but 1000 eyeballs is a 1000 eyeballs.
June 28th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Gene, very good point as more “likes” is not the only analytic to pay attention to. However, if the comparison is only a few people liking your page versus hundreds or thousands liking it, which would you want? So, is there ever a time that you would want fewer fans? I can’t think of any, but would welcome your thoughts.
July 2nd, 2010 at 8:13 pm
I can’t think of a case where you would want fewer fans, but I would be interested in reading a good example (a counter argument). Maybe in a negative situation, but even then I’m not sure. If you use BP as an example, the more fans they can hold on to the better.