What Kind of Businesses Should Care About Increasing Facebook “Likes”?

By Sarbartha/ October 14th, 2011/ Posted in: Social Media 0 comment

There are a wealth of resources that companies can use to boost their virtual presence. Want to increase brand awareness? Try a Twitter account. Want to bring more traffic to your website? Get the best seo software out there.

But companies that try to do everything – and seek to put themselves on every social media platform – may not be spending their time wisely. The quest to amass Facebook “Likes” is a case in point. Sure, every business wants its Facebook page to have millions of followers, since this creates a captive advertising market and can be perceived by anyone who clicks on the page as a sign of brand strength. But a company with 10,000 likes, for example, may be spending its resources inappropriately in its quest to get 10,000 more.

There’s no question that having “Likes” has an impact on business that ranges from negligent to positive, meaning that there’s no harm in courting them. But how can we know when we no longer will get marginal utility from added likes? Specifically, what kind of companies should be actively trying to raise that number, and what kind should focus its attention elsewhere?

For large, well-established companies, the importance of Facebook “Likes” should be a consequence of its products. Companies that sell books, or steel, or consulting services — really anything without a digital component – won’t get much extra benefit from finding a few more “Likes.” Consumers are unlikely to buy or interact with these products through Facebook, the company is not expected to have a high number of “Likes,” and anyone who visits the Facebook page will be unlikely to learn much new about the business or its products.

Conversely, larger businesses with a strong digital component may want to maximize their number of “Likes.” A firm in this category may be expected to have a Facebook page, and a low number of “Likes” could be seen as a sign of a weaker online presence. Furthermore, if its products or services are sold or provided, respectively, online, then having an extra 5,000 people to interact with the Facebook page or see product information in their news feeds might make a worthwhile difference.

For small businesses, especially those looking to grow and establish a national reputation, amassing more Facebook “Likes” can bring for them more legitimacy. There’s a good chance that a visitor to the page will take 500 “Likes” more seriously than 50, for example. These businesses are also more likely to focus their products on niche markets, which is another reason for liking “Likes”: a niche product can bring together a community of like-minded people on a company’s Facebook page, and these people are probably more interest in seeing information about the product on their news feed. Also, someone who enjoys a niche product will probably have friends who do too, which suggests the possibility that brand awareness could spread, for free, through Facebook.

This is just a general analysis, and a given business will certainly want to take further considerations into account. But before you start losing sleep over your number of Facebook “Likes,” make sure that pursuing them is truly important for your company’s products and needs.