Let’s Talk About Likes

Admit it, you were singing along. 

These days with the digital world taking business owners by storm, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the constant data always coming your way. But what does it all mean?!

In every client consultation I have ever sat in, I always ask the question… “What are the goals for your brand?” I can safely say 99.87775394628365236% of the time the response is, “I want lots of “likes” and I want something to go viral”. 

Did you hear that? It was the sound of my head exploding… you’re welcome. Thank you pop culture for the use of buzz words like “viral”, but I digress. WHY do you want more page likes? 

Typically the answer is simple, you don’t actually want more page likes, what you really want is more sales. So deductive reasoning would tell you more people means more eyeballs, and more eyeballs mean more sales…right? 

Ahhhh if only life were that simple. Cue the dancing unicorns. I wish I could say to you, “It’s very simple, give me this much money and I will purchase you 10,000 Facebook likes and your sales will triple in 90 days.” But we all know life isn’t simple, and unicorns don’t dance… clearly they fly.

So what does that mean for you? Your goal is to increase sales, and I’ve just plopped a big ol’ rain cloud on your parade. 

While Facebook likes are important, there is something to be said for quality over quantity. You should always include “growing your audience” as one of your digital goals, but my plea for you it to aim for it in a more realistic manner. 

So all of this brings us to the wonderful word, ENGAGEMENT. Say it with me, En-Gage-Ment. While your competitors are chasing down every Tom, Dick, and Sally to “like” their page, what you should be focusing on, is how to beat them in, you guessed it, engagement!

Have you ever seen the Keebler commercials with the elves that live in the trees and make delicious magical cookies? I think Facebook houses similar super smart elves that construct the most elaborate algorithms in the history of the world, just to give me a headache. So to simplify it, your engagement rate on Facebook can be calculated by the total number of “People Talking About” your page, divided by the total number of “likes”.

Ding ding ding! So maybe you have 10,000 likes, but only 100 people care enough about you to comment, like, and share… do you see where I’m going with this? See ya later engagement rate! And if those same people don’t care enough to exercise their fingers on your Facebook page, do you really think they will leave Facebook, travel to your website, and purchase your product? You don’t really need me to answer that do you?

According to “Social Media Experts” an acceptable engagement rate is 1-2%… are you kidding me?!? Does that feel ridiculously low to you too? We are so worried about finding new fans, we aren’t taking the time to appreciate the ones who are already there. Doesn’t this sound like dating advice you got in college?

I take you back to my earlier argument about quality over quantity. Stop obsessively checking your likes, and start thinking about what you can do for the fans who are already engaging with you. Because those fans my friends, are what we like to call customers.