It’s a debate that looms larger than putting pineapple on pizza (well, okay, not really): Should my business pay to gain new likes on Facebook? To answer this question, we dug into the associated benefits and pitfalls and our clients’ historical performance. The answer is not black and white, but there were some compelling arguments for both sides. Read on below.
Benefits to paying for page likes include:
More page likes means more social proof. People are more likely to find credibility in and interact with a company’s social page if they see a large number of followers.
Paying for likes helps a company keep pace with the follower counts of competitor brands, which again can be beneficial for social proof.
Audience growth provides a larger targetable audience for both organic and promoted posts, and, with the right marketing mix, you can often drive other meaningful engagement from this audience.
Challenges with paying for page likes include:
Page-like campaigns are often considered artificial audience growth, as opposed to letting visitors come to a Facebook page and like it naturally due to a genuine interest in the brand.
The price of a page like can be unpredictable. In 2019 we’ve seen costs decrease as Facebook pushes advertisers to prioritize traffic and conversion campaigns and competition for page likes decreases as a result. Depending on your industry and the size of your brand, though, you may still pay as much as $0.50 - $1.00 per page like.
This is a very “top of the marketing funnel” activity. Page likers can become converting customers, but are only likely to do so when shown repeated promotional material, meaning you’ll have to spend more advertising dollars to generate further engagement.
So, to pay for the like or not to pay?
We think page-like campaigns can be worthwhile for brands who are trying to increase their social proof and keep pace with competitors, especially if your brand is new or small. However, this comes with caveats:
Page-like campaigns should be kept small and rarely, if ever, prioritized over other traffic and conversion campaigns that drive more direct consumer actions
Page-like campaigns shouldn’t be used as a stand-in for organic social growth that comes from consistently posting quality content
Page-like campaigns should be carefully targeted so that likers are a good fit for the brand (and more likely to engage later)
Page likers should be nurtured with further promoted posts and engagement campaigns to pull them down the funnel and generate more interest with your brand
So how do you nurture those who like your page? Our recommended next step is to promote (boost) posts to this audience, especially posts that highlight your brand’s unique selling points. Getting page-likers to engage with your page via post likes, comments, shares and clicks means they’re then warm enough to target with traffic campaigns to drive them to your website, and ultimately funnel them into retargeting (conversion) campaigns. Not all page-likers will harbor enough interest in your product to convert, of course, but this is the best way we’ve found to move their relationship with your brand beyond that of a simple page like.
Have more questions about how to create an effective marketing funnel via social campaigns? Want to get more conversions from your ads? Book a free consultation with us today by emailing hello@makadigital.com.
