What are Facebook “Likes” Actually Worth?

Facebook “likes” by themselves are worth nothing.

There. We said it.

But how can that be true if you need a comprehensive social media marketing strategy to succeed in business these days?

Your Facebook page and other owned media gives you a chance to engage with your customers, to share useful information, and to build trust. That’s how you build and expand a loyal customer base.

It doesn’t matter how many “likes” you have if you’re not doing any of those things. If people “like” your page, but you aren’t regularly publishing and sharing relevant content, your posts won’t show up in their feeds and there won’t be much to actually like.

You might attract some new customers if they see that you have a huge number of “likes,” but if your new prospects don’t have a good first-time customer experience, they won’t be back.

Does your company magically get a dollar every time someone on Facebook clicks “like”? Nope.

Is a person who clicks “like” guaranteed to purchase one of your products or services? Nope.

Will customers learning about you for the first time line up outside your door because they saw that your Facebook page has hundreds of thousands of “likes”? Nope.

A large number of Facebook “likes” and Twitter followers can be a decent reflection of how much people like your company and your social media presence, but if you’re doing it right those figures are a by-product of your success. They should never be the objective.

Far better to have a small loyal customer base than a legion of people on the Internet who once clicked the “like” button but have moved on and forgotten all about you—or worse—in the meantime.

By all means, rack up those “likes.” Just remember that you can’t take them to the bank.