Why Facebook “Likes” Don’t Matter Anymore (Kinda)
...or, How to Get More Likes For Your Facebook Page
Facebook Tears Down the Wall for Brand Page Comments
You "Like" me! You really "Like" me!
While Facebook was rolling out the big changes last week, one slipped under the radar with hardly a peep. You can now comment on a brand’s Facebook Page without ever “Liking” them and becoming an actual Fan!
This news is probably upsetting if you’ve been putting a lot of effort into getting “Likes” so you could get your content in front of more folks. But the truth is, a “Like” hasn’t been much of a factor for a while now. Who sees your updates — and how often — has been completely reliant on your EdgeRank, not only overall but with each particular Fan.
That’s where the social part of your social media campaign has had to come into play — and now more than ever.
The Bad News about the Facebook Change to Page Comments: when it comes to your own Facebook Page, it’s going to be a lot more difficult to get those “Like” numbers that make you at least look like a brand people are actually interested in. Having a Page with low numbers discourages others from jumping on board. So for those of you who see the number of “Likes” on a Page as indicative of your popularity or influence, that measurement still stands, and now it’s going to be harder to look like the exciting brand you know you are.
The Good News about the Facebook Change to Page Comments: Your ability to increase EdgeRank — and be seen more often in someone’s News Feed — just got much easier, if human interaction with your Page is still a heavyweight variable in the EdgeRank algorithm.
So, how are you going to get those “Likes” now?
4 Tips to Get More Facebook Likes
1) Step up your game with premium content available only to Fans, content they can only access by clicking “Like.” Check out Primal Mist Perfume’s Facebook Page for an example. Anyone can access Primal Mist’s wall, but there’s hidden content within their Welcome Page, and it’s accessible only after clicking “Like.” We did the same for the Facebook Landing Pages for Shamrock Financial Corporation and Fitness and Nutrition for Life.
2) Create more contests, and make those contests reliant on folks not only being Fans, but on sharing your content.
3) Get out there in social media land (Twitter, Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs…) and build relationships with members of your target audience, and also with folks who are influential with your target audience. Build real relationships. Because if people know you genuinely care about them, they’ll usually care right back. Ignore them and be self-absorbed at your own peril.
4) Make your Facebook Page an awesome place to hang out. Landing Pages, YouTube tabs (even if you don’t have your own content), contests, questions, great discussions…be amazing. Be really amazing.
Why I “Like” the New Facebook Comment Freedom
I use Twitter to drive traffic to our Facebook Page to read specific content I’ve posted. One thing I always hated was that folks had to be Fans in order to comment, though. Getting comments on Facebook not only required writing content people wanted to interact with, but if they weren’t Fans yet, commenting also required them to take an extra step or two! And let’s be honest — none of us likes having to take extra steps just to comment on a Facebook update or blog post.
The Extra Good News about the Facebook Change to Comments: With this new change to the way folks can interact with your brand on Facebook, when someone DOES “Like” your Page now, they’re saying, “I really like your content or brand, and I want others to know about it. I want to be affiliated with your brand. You and me? We’re tight right now.” And those are the kind of Fans that you want.
Will you comment on Facebook Pages more often now that you don’t have to Like them?
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Love your perspective on this, Michelle. I’ve seen a lot of fuss about how not requiring a “like’ before commenting is a bad thing as it might give more opportunities for enraged customers to lambaste companies for screwing up. It’s sad that we think in those terms, isn’t it? If that’s what people are worried about, then clearly, there are a lot of businesses than need to rethink how they handle customer service!
I think you bring up a good point – requiring the “like” previously prevented people who wanted to leave GOOD comments from doing so. It’s important to look at it from the other angle.
Great tips for encouraging more likes, too! :)
I still haven’t created a Facebook page for our company–well, I created one, but haven’t made it live. In part because I’m not really sure that my target customers are active on Facebook in a way that would garner a following. I.e., they might want to follow us on LinkedIn where they are in business mode, but not on Facebook where they mostly use it for personal/entertainment. I think I’d get a lot of social media folks rather than the newbies and marketing/CEO/CTOs I want. However, I have recently thought of an appropriate type of content for an FB page for our business, and might start using it.
That said, aside from “legitimizing” your company, I wonder if Like’s really buy you that much. It bought you visibility on people’s walls, if Edgerank let you through. But might there be better ways to get that visibility? Especially now with the Ticker? If you can get good content that people read and get it to show up on the ticker, wouldn’t you rather that it drive people to your blog or website than a Facebook page?
I don’t know. Still thinking about all of this.
I love the way you’re thinking it all through, Neicole. I’ll comment on this later today!
I am participating in Facebook Success Summit next week; in fact, I paid for it. I’ve been hoping I’m gonna get up to speed quick, but with all these changes, I have no earthly clue if I’ll ever master FB marketing.
The like thing is kinda too bad; it was a metric we enjoyed tracking for a client and it worked well. Now, I’m going to need to see other stats to ensure we’re making headway.
Where do you have time to know all this?
Jayme, I found out accidentally when I was on a Facebook Page that was open for me to comment on, even though I wasn’t a fan. At first I thought it was either a fluke or some cool setting the Brand had discovered. Then I saw another social media marketing manager post about it on her personal profile. Serendipity, really!
I love this new feature, but I love anything Facebook does to make engagement easier. Getting those “Likes” is still important, because of the psychological effect higher numbers have on visitors to our Pages. The upside is we might be able to get more engagement, as long as we can drive folks to our Pages from other platforms.
As always, content is king – or queen!
Thanks so much for stopping in, Jayme. You’re awesome!