What is the Value of a Facebook Fan?

Syncapse published a groundbreaking study in 2010 called, “The Value of a Facebook Fan: An Empirical Review,” and they recently revisited the study to compare the findings to the current social environment.  Not only have Facebook Fans become more valuable, but the sophistication of brand interaction has been significantly amplified.

How Do You Apply Fan Value to Your Marketing Strategy?

Understanding the factors that determine value in a Fan is critical when planning and executing your marketing strategy. First, determine and weigh the unique factors that determine your business’ bottom line, and then deploy those factors across your existing marketing models. Benchmark and track the results in order to understand the long-term cause and effect. Syncapse emphasizes the importance of rallying all of your marketing stakeholders around the factors of Fan Value.

The Value of a Fan Is Comparative to Your Retail Prices

If your company has smaller retail prices with a frequent repeat purchase cycle, then the value of your brand’s Facebook Fan will be less.  In addition, the importance of reach and frequency while maintaining an everyday presence on social media is greater.  Apply your user’s wants and needs to introduce relevant triggers for new purchases.

According to Syncapse’s study, Facebook brand Fans:

• Are 80% more likely than non-Fans to be brand customers.
• Spend 43% more in respective categories versus non-Fans, despite not having a higher income.
• Are 18% more satisfied with their brands than are non-Fan customers.
• Are 11% more likely to continue to use the brand than are non-Fan customers.

Engaging Facebook Fans will also amplify the positive attributes of your product by enabling them to share their positive brand experiences.  For example, if your company sells diamond rings, then a customer will feel great when posting a picture of her engagement ring on Facebook.  She will feel even better when her friends ‘like’ her ring, and comment on how beautiful it is.  This interaction will “extend a halo of positivity” over your brand.

Fans vs. Non-Fans

Use existing customer touch points to convert brand users into Fans.  Then make them happy by segmenting, communicating with, and engaging them based on their specific wants and needs.  Your Fans will spend more on your products than non-fans, so focus your marketing efforts on creating more Fans from your customers and engaging them appropriately.

Examples of customer touch points:

• Micro Sites
• Product Packaging
• Time of Purchase
• Customer Service Interactions

Facebook Fans are also 25% more likely to recommend the brand to their friends than non-Fans.  In order to increase the vested interest in your Fans, interact with your customers to find out what their passions are, solicit their input and enable a feeling of ownership.  If you can do this, then your customers will have an increased interest in your brand, and they will be more likely to share your brand and their experiences with their friends.

How Can You Get Your Customers To Become Fans?

80% of Fans currently use the brand that they are Fans of.  So, prioritize your efforts on converting your existing customers, then move on toward your prospects.  Customers become fans in order to express themselves by representing themselves through the brands that they ‘like.’  In order to invest in your marketing strategy to gain Facebook Fans, prioritize your reach by establishing quality Facebook membership of existing customers and focusing on creating brand personality attributes.

Engage Your Facebook Fans

• Build awareness by sharing great content
• Encourage interactions by asking customers to post photos on your Facebook
• Feature customers on your Facebook
• Create an extraordinary visual experience that customers want to share
• Provide incentives for sharing, such as discounts or coupons
• Build contests for sharing
• Build mass momentum with events

The Future of Facebook Fans

The value of a Fan, as well as the growth in the volume of brand Fans, display the need for ongoing activity surrounding this lucrative target group.  It will require disciplined management, some serious investing, and putting social media at the center of your brand’s overall marketing strategy.

Considering Facebook’s new “Graph Search” will expand the engagement and behavioral lock-in among Facebook users, focusing on Facebook Fans will create increased relevance for your marketing strategies.  Mobile is also gaining momentum to become the front-runner of the digital world, so mobile marketing practices should be a core element in your marketing investments for Facebook and other social media platforms.

Overall, Syncapse’s report validates a deeper commitment to use the value of a Facebook Fan in order to achieve smarter social marketing for your business.