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What’s the Value of a Like?

April 18, 2017

Companies across the world spend billions of dollars every year to increase their social media presence. For example, Red Bull live-streamed a man skydiving from space and shared it all over their social networks. Companies will go to extreme links to get their brand out there and Facebook seems to be the preferred platform of choice. Up to 80% of Fortune 500 companies have active Facebook pages and generate content such as articles, photos and videos to entice customers to buy. However, liking a post or page does not necessarily mean a person will buy and several studies have been done to discover this fact.

The act of endorsing a brand does not necessarily lead to a buying decision, nor does it spur someone to buy more. Leslie John, Oliver Emrich and colleagues from the Harvard Business School conducted a research study to determine if liking a Facebook page affected a buyer’s decision. All participants were given a coupon for a cosmetic brand and half of those participants were asked to like the brands Facebook page. According to test results, across 16 studies, no evidence was found that following a brand on social media changes a person’s purchasing behavior.

Much enthusiasm is set for the future of social media advertising; however, 80% of 427 marketers at different U.S. companies concluded that they are unable to quantify the value of their social media efforts. There is so much more to be explored within the realm of social media advertising and companies across the world are willing to rise to the challenge.

What’s the Value of a Like?