The Misguided Rationale Behind Facebook "Likes"

The Need For A Paradigm Shift In Your Marketing Approach
If you follow Social Media and the conversations around it you will hear a common refrain that many, even most, brands/businesses are doing social media incorrectly. I believe there is a lot of truth in that statement and I think the underlying reason for that truth is that social media, really all digital media, requires a paradigm shift in the thinking behind how to build a brand vs. how marketers have traditionally used media vehicles to do so.

Since ages past the basic premise of marketing, in simplified terms, has been: define your target consumer, identify the media vehicles that consumer uses and craft your brand message so that it interrupts the content on those media vehicles and thus “reaches” your consumer. Over time as the types of available media expanded, the concept of “surrounding” your target consumer with your message, or of delivering an integrated message across different media types emerged, but the basic premise of reach and interruption remained unchanged.

The challenge with social and digital media is that the concepts of “reach” and “interruption” no longer hold true in the same manner as they do with more traditional media forms. The reason being is that in digital formats the consumer has infinitely more control over whether or not they wish to see your message. Yet many marketers still approach social and digital media through the same lens as they approach traditional media. They have not made the paradigm shift in thinking from reach based messaging to messaging that adds value to a community, which is what is required for effective digital programming. Facebook provides a convenient example to this point.

Facebook Example Of The Misguided Quest For Likes
In my experience most marketers approach their Facebook programming with the goal of gaining “likes”. Although “likes” can be a reasonable metric, unfortunately the motive behind acquiring “likes” is often to create as large a fan base as possible to deliver your marketing message to, or put another way, to create a large consumer population that you can easily reach with your ad message.

That rationale basically applies a traditional “reach” based approach to a social channel. However, the goal of putting your message in front of as many people as possible is not social, it is self serving, and doesn’t necessarily work in social channels.

Instead of thinking about how to acquire likes and thus expand your potential “reach”, you should be thinking about how you can develop something that people will want to discuss and share. The latter is a fundamentally different approach and necessitates the assumption that people are not automatically going to like your brand or message simply because you are on Facebook and saying something. Rather it requires you to think about how to earn their likes by creating content that provides genuine value to the people you want to follow your brand.

This thinking holds true for all types of social media vehicles, not just Facebook. Beyond evolving their approach to digital/social channels, marketers will also benefit from correctly defining their goals & adapting their message to the medium, both of which I will explore in future posts.