Facebook likes….

The BBC has this article today about the value of “facebook likes’ – see http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18813237

I’m not overly surprised, as :

1. I’ve been getting a number of spam emails with “Buy 1000 likes for $49” or whatever, so no doubt there are people being paid to click ‘like’ in the same way as there are people being paid to post comment spam on blogs and os on.
2. A customer of mine ran some promotions a year ago (“Click Like and get a chance to win a free ____”). They now have 1200 Likes on their page, but it’s not led to anything. Everyone who clicked like was after the prize – and has near zero interest in buying anything from the customer in question (i.e. getting a like from someone who was viewing “moneysavingexpert.com” isn’t likely to lead to a customer who wants to pay for a holiday villa rental).

So, David’s 2p:

• Facebook remains good for engaging with customers
• Buying likes, or running competitions to acquire ‘likes’ isn’t worth the effort.

However, I suspect if I visited a new website/shop and saw it had N thousand likes, I’d be far more inclined to buy from it than a website with only a handful of likes.

Hmm.