What are Facebook fans worth?

It’s becoming very common for companies to create a Facebook page for their brand; it’s easy, it’s free and anybody can have access to it. However, really getting into Facebook marketing takes time and a lot of commitment. So we’re left wondering: is this really worth it?

We’ve seen answers ranging from $0 to $136 but it really depends on how you interact with your fans. Putting a dollar amount on a Facebook fan is nearly impossible, but you can get an idea of whether or not your efforts are working. So how can you measure the results? Use your page’s insights and look for these statistics:

• Interactions (comments, posts and “likes”) are the most important piece of information. They tell you what percentage of your fans interacts with your page and at the same time advertise your brand to their friends. Every time one of your fans takes an action on your posts, his or her Facebook friends see someone they know interact and in a way recommend your brand. A fan that interacts is a fan susceptible of staying loyal and spending money on your brand.
• Impressions, how many people actually see your posts. But keep in mind when a user just scrolls over your post in their news feeds without reading, it counts as an impression. Impressions are a good indicator of when you should post updates. If updates posted at 10 am gather less impressions than the one posted at lunch time, it means you should post more during lunchtime.
• “Likes” are the least important factor. You may have a thousand likes but if your fans don’t interact with you they are almost literally worthless. The number of “unlikes” is what you should keep your eye on. If it increases it means you’re doing something wrong and your fans are going out of their way to hide you. You need to analyse what is wrong and change your strategy.

So keep in mind: interact with your fans by including calls to actions, ask for their opinion, show them things they want to see, reward them by offering coupons. Use your page’s insight to see what posts your fans react to the most, if the “unlikes” are rising, and to understand your fans better. It will help you maximize the value of your fans and your time!