Nowadays, many companies are offering certain incentives for customers to like their Facebook page. It is a common thing for companies to offer a chance to win a product in exchange for likes on their Facebook page. Other companies are offering discount coupons for everyone who likes their Facebook page. In one of the Ipad games I played, one way to get “free” gold (as opposed to purchasing it with real cash) to buy items, is to like the company’s Facebook page. The UBC bookstore also had a similar promotion where they were handing out free t shirts for people who liked their Facebook page.
These incentives will push many people to like a company’s Facebook page to get the free benefits. Generally speaking, without incentives, many users on Facebook won’t like a company, even if they use their services or purchase from them, simply because they are lazy. One might ask, why is it so important to companies that users like their Facebook page? Why would companies go as far as giving away free products just for “likes” on Facebook? In addition, many of the likes on Facebook are done by users who are already customers, so why does it matter if this customer likes your Facebook page or not, if they already purchase from your company.
It is true that individual likes on Facebook definitely create brand awareness and promote the brand, however there is a more important reason why companies put so much emphasis on Facebook likes. The real value of Facebook likes is not only the person who liked the page, but the friends of those people. It is very common for people to ask friends about which companies they buy/use products/services from. Even if the person who liked a company’s Facebook page is already a customer, they probably have lots of friends who aren’t. This is an effective method for companies to hit multiple “birds” with “one stone”. From generating one like on Facebook, a company can potentially get all of that person’s friends to be customers. This method truly shows the effectiveness of raising brand awareness and being associated with your customers. This also shows the importance and effectiveness of word of mouth from customers. Word of mouth makes it essential for companies to leave customers with a good impression, as this could easily backfire if customers have negative things to say about your company. If a customer feels that a certain company has poor customer service, they would spread this to all their friends and that company would potentially lose a lot of customers.