Social Media & Digital Marketing in Singapore

Facebook Likes – 3 Billion A Day: What Does It Mean?

Apparently there are 3 billion clicks on Facebook Like buttons a day all over the internet. No matter how much salt you take that number with, that’s a lot of Likes. Even if you assume everyone is equally active on Facebook (which they aren’t), that’s six likes per day per active user!

I was personally skeptical about the effectiveness of the Facebook Like button (notice there’s none on this site?) but seeing The Chinese Challenge 2010 go from 5 to almost 900 Likes in just about 12 days is making me a believer. (disclosure: I work with the people behind The Chinese Challenge).

So what is it about this innocuous Like button that is so appealing?

According to the original post on Simply Zesty, there are three main reasons why people would click on a Like button:

1) We like to give kudos

2) We like it because it’s social

3) We like it because it’s easy

Of the three reasons, #3 resonates most with me. Liking is so easy and requires such little involvement and commitment, that there is a danger of it becoming frivolous.

Think about it, if 3 billion Likes were given out today, what makes yours any different from the other 2,999,999,999 out there?

To me, what this means is simple. Facebook, in changing the action from “being a fan” to “Liking”, has drastically lowered the friction of being associated with a brand, product, service, cause or idea. As a result, more people are Liking than ever before and it’s easier to “collect” Likes than ever before.

There is however, a flip side to this: it means that standing out, being salient and maintaining engagement is harder than before. Perhaps previously people who really loved your product or service hunted your Facebook Fan Page down to join it as a fan, but now the most casual member of the public could click on like just because it was on a 3rd party site.

Is one necessarily better than the other? I don’t know, but let’s not blindly look at the numbers as the Second Coming and give some thought to what that really means for your brand, product, service or cause.

How have you used Facebook Like buttons? Have they worked for you? I would love to hear from you in the comments.

[image credit: zranwim on Flickr]

Tags: 3 billion facebook likes, 3 billion likes, brand, cause, easy, facebook fan page, facebook like, facebook like button, frivolous, give kudos, idea, low commitment, low involvement, maintaining engagement, product, salient, service, simply zesty, social, standing out, the chinese challenge

Posted in facebook, social media | 3 Comments »

The DC Universe Blog – One To Learn From

I’m a huge comic book fan. I read tonnes of them each year and like all comic book fans, I get my new from the internet these days, instead of the old comic magazines that used to be published.

So one of the Big Two, DC Comics (the other being Marvel), started a blog called The Source just about a week ago and has been publishing posts fast and furiously ever since. And I think while their industry, being one that sells new product on a weekly basis, certainly fits the speed and delivery of a blog very well, they’ve used it in some interesting ways that have made me sit up and take notice.

First of all, when you get to the blog, you can’t help but notice the “After Watchmen” banner right on top. Absolutely brilliant strategic move to tie in the blog to the hit movie, and let the larger audience know that Watchmen was indeed a product of DC, many many years ago.

The next and most obvious way for DC to utilise their blog, would be to tease upcoming content. And they’re doing just that, with lots of stuff on this summer’s big event, Blackest Night. So they do stuff like that, which certainly helps put their product front and center in people’s minds, but what I really like is the way they’ve used the blog to humanise the company. For example, the blog details a day in the life of a Batman group editor, as well as pictures of certain interiors of the office.

I talk to people about starting a blog all the time, and I’m always astounded when people say their stuff is boring, no one wants to read this, what’s there to blog, the usual excuses.

There’s lots of things that can be done with a company blog. And surprise surprise, it doesn’t always have to be about your product/service/cause/non-profit/school/whatever, and frankly, neither should it be.

Tags: batman group editor, blackest night, cause, comic book, company blogs, corporate blog, dc comics, dc universe, Graphic Novels, humanise company, humanize company, marvel comics, non-profit, office interiors, product, school, service, the source, watchmen

Posted in Blogs, case studies, social media | No Comments »