That’s why the Like on Facebook is worth nothing

A hot topic, when it comes to Facebook, is the Like, the most common and simple action that a user can perform.

Similarly, on the Page management side, it is one of the many possible metrics that can be monitored for measuring performance.

As Digital Strategist of Be.Family, I compare myself every day with the Facebook Insights of dozens of pages: lots of numbers, graphs, formulas, KPIs.

Is Like the answer to everything?

I would like to share with you some considerations precisely on the metric of the Like, also to remove a pebble from my shoe.

As the title says,

Like on Facebook is worth nothing. Almost.

Okay, I said it. I feel better already!

Have you ever come across a page with thousands of likes, but counting 2-3 likes for every shared update?

I’m sure they did, and you must have thought «They bought Likes on eBay! » or “This page doesn’t work because users are not engaged.”

The exact answer does not exist, or rather, it is not possible to know it a priori.

In any case, it is evident that the total number of Likes of a page does not determine its success or failure.

Interactions are worth gold: goodbye Likes-addicts

I enjoy defining the so -called Like-employee companies: the management of your FB page is focused exclusively on the mere increase in Likes. Faced with the most complete report that highlights the full health of the page, because the interactions are high and the pre-set objectives achieved, the representative of these companies will always and in any case pronounce, «Eh, but I see that the number of Likes does not go up, it does not We’re doing well here!”

According to our Wikipedia page creators, Unfortunately, in all this misunderstanding, Facebook is also to blame. In the Overview section of the Insights, scrolling down, you will find the Pages to monitor function: administrators can insert competing pages (without being discovered by the latter, who will simply receive a notification warning them of the monitoring) to monitor their performance and compare them with those of your own.

This is a very useful function, but also Likes-dependent: in fact, the ranking of the returned Pages is based on the total number of Likes. Therefore, assuming that a crafty competitor has bought a few thousand Likes, he would leap to the top of the ranking. Understand that this is an absurd situation.

But how, I have nothing to hide: my Likes are all authentic!

Ok, legal, indeed, fantastic, is the situation that all companies should achieve. But there is a much more important metric than likes, which returns the real performance of a Facebook page: the number of interactions. Let’s go back to the pages we keep under control: you will notice that the 5th column contains precisely the “Interactions of this week”. And that’s the holy grail of Facebook engagement.

Total engagements are the sum of all clicks, reactions, comments, and shares on published posts. In other words, they synthesize audience engagement and are worth gold: the more interactions you get, the more alive the page and the more loyal users. Beyond the total number of Likes.

Take a look at the example above: Hootsuite leads the way, with 481,200 Likes, versus 288,500 for Social Media Examiner, in 4th place, or Ninja Marketing ‘s 62,500 (over 130,000 today, chapeau!). But let’s look at the interactions: Hootsuite has, on average, just 13.75/post, against Social Media Examiner’s 225.8 and Ninja Marketing’s 80, which have a much smaller fan base.

Engagement Rate: Here’s What We Like

Still not convinced that likes are cheap?

Do you know how FB post engagement rate is calculated? Once upon a time, when organic reach was 100%, the engagement rate was calculated based on the total number of likes, while now it depends exclusively on interactions, number of posts and total reach. No Likes, no apologies.

1. Log in as Administrator (or via Business Manager) to your page;
2. Insights > Posts;
3. On the header row of the All Posts Published table, click the little arrow button next to “Reactions, Comments, and Shares,” then choose “Engagement Rate”;

In general, the higher the percentage, the higher the engagement. However, how to define the goodness of percentages?

1. compare the values ​​between the posts of the last 30/60/90 days and write down the characteristics of the most successful posts (day of the week and time, post type, tone-of-voice used, graphic style, etc.);
2. Compare your average engagement rate over the past week to the pages you monitor. The formula is simple:

Now, are you still convinced that Likes are so important?

Would you like to switch from Likes-dependent to Interactions-dependent by increasing the performance of your Facebook page?