There are varying schools of thought about whether or not a value can be placed on Facebook likes, and social performance management platform Syncapse cast its vote for “yes” by pegging the value of likes to consumer brands on the social network at $174 each and saying that figure has risen 28 percent since 2010.Syncapse conducted its initial study of 20 top global consumer brands in 2010 and pegged the value of a like at $136 at the time.The company also pointed out that like totals have doubled or tripled for most of the brands since 2010, so any increase in value is magnified, adding that the brands it examined have risen from a few million fans in 2010 to more than 15 million in 2013, with some even eclipsing that figure (Coca-Cola has more than 63 million, and McDonald’s has surpassed 28 million).
The study by Syncapse compared fans and non-fans in the categories of product spending, brand loyalty, propensity to recommend, media value, cost of acquisition, and brand affinity, and Syncapse said it collected data from more than 2,000 panelists in the U.S. in late January and early February.
Syncapse Founder and CEO Michael Scissons said: Recent years have been characterized by hype and a competitive race to acquire the most Facebook fan connections, but brand marketers are sobering up and beginning to ask hard questions around the return on investment of social marketing. Perhaps no question is asked more than, “What is the value of a Facebook brand fan?” With this study, we applied stringent research methods to benchmark and measure the differences between users who have liked or fanned a brand on Facebook and those who have not, to determine their business value.
