Brands would benefit so much more from focusing on engagement rates and organic growth than on Facebook "Likes". I can't wait for the day when brands start to update their cover images with graphs showing their "brand engagement levels" instead of their 10,000 fans or followers.
Here is a handy formula to calculate your current engagement rates and some graphs that show what type of content gets the highest levels of engagement.
Getting "Likes" is an easy enough formula, it just costs money and requires giving away some prizes or incentives every now and then.
The following graphs show the direct result of campaigns on Facebook where Facebook Ads were used.
These are two of my favourite examples of how useless a "Fan" or "Like" can be: Firstly, have a look at www.pleaselike.com and then watch the video below. This is essentially what happens when you just chase after "Likes" instead of using social media to create true brand advocates and ambassadors.
It is also important to remember that the more fans a brand has, the more money it will need to spend to manage those communities and create content. In addition to this, the bigger a community grows the lower the engagement levels become.
Many brands celebrate how many Facebook fans they have - a case of "my page is bigger than your page", but there is a big chance those same fans "Like" every other competitor's page.
In conclusion, brands should be focusing on the insights and data that social media allows them to tap into, they need to move away from focusing on how many Facebook fans they have compared to their competitors and start focusing on what they do with the fans they have and how they can use social media to "out care" their competitors.
