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How Much Is A Facebook Fan Worth To A Company?

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Categories: Digital Marketing, Facebook Marketing

Facebook has been recently discovered by retailers as a valuable marketing tool that allows them to engage with their customers. Two years ago it was a website for college students to connect, it is now a 800 pound marketing gorilla with 600 million users and is used to promote specials deals, find out what customers like and drive traffic to companies “Bricks” and “Clicks” stores.How Much Is A Facebook Fan Worth To A Company

Facebook is also one of the lowest cost digital marketing channels to target your particular customer demographic in comparison to Google adwords (with data from Commscore as reported in the Wall Street Journal) revealing that

“In September 24% of all online display ads in the U.S. appeared on Facebook—more than twice as many as any other publisher. Yet Facebook is far from capturing a quarter of the wallets of major marketers. The company accounts for just 9.5% of the spending on display ads in the U.S., according to research firm eMarketer Inc”

This indicates that Facebook is vigorously chasing online digital marketing spend to take market share from Google and other digital marketing channels and at this stage appears to be a bargain with the above numbers indicating that on average other banner ads are 252% more expensive.

We have certainly found that using Facebook banner ads that drive traffic to a landing page is very cost effective and very targeted.

Many B2C companies have large numbers of Fans on their Facebook page with some companies having millions of fans (The 10 most popular company Facebook pages) with Coca Cola with over 20  million fans and Starbucks with more than 18 million. (Source: Insidefacebook.com).

But what are these Facebook fans worth?

According to a study by Syncapse each Fan is worth $136.38.

This number though should not be taken on face value, according to the CEO of Syncapse Mike Scissons

“We are not saying that if Facebook didn’t exist the fans wouldn’t still be worth that much, and that the value would disappear. We are trying to show marketers what the value of that audience represents to the company vs. a lot of traditional tactics… The sum of the [report] really talks about the overall value that the Facebook-specific audience brings to the company.”
Syncapse Value of a Facebook Fan
According to Syncapse the major takeaways are:

  • Value is reflected not simply by the action of being a “Fan” but rather the value of the audience.
  • A Fan base is a self-segmented group of highly valuable customers
  • Facebook fans reported spending $71.84 more per year than non fans
  • Facebook fans are more loyal to the fanned brand than non-fans
  • 68% of Facebook Fans indicate they are very likely to recommend a product
  • Monetary value of fans varies dramatically. Some are intensely active while others are totally inactive.

What is a Facebook Fan worth to your brand?

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  • http://blog.esimplestudios.com Gabriele Maidecchi

    My personal view on this is that a fan is worth absolutely zero to a company.
    A fan is just a person pressing a “Like” button. What’s valuable is the process that brings him to press it in first place, and especially what happens AFTER.
    Too many times businesses push all they can in order to get a Like, and then they do nothing after that.
    Fans are merely people up to listen to you. If you don’t tell them anything, they are just a number. If you tell them the wrong thing, they might even work against you.

  • http://www.ellipsisdive.com James

    Well the question is same as how much is a banner ad worth and so on… We have been using facebook fans to spread promotions, etc. and it really has been working quite well… If you are hosting a webinar, throw it out on your fans… they see it; their friends see it… and the news spreads… It’s really quite easy way to spread any kind of viral information…

    I consider facebook as more of a platform to easily spread news, but twitter does the same thing… and perhaps in a better way because it’s focused on small messages and no other fancy stuff around it…

  • http://coloradohomesecurity.net/ colorado security

    Great job here. I really enjoyed what you had to say. Keep going because you definitely bring a new voice to this subject. Not many people would say what you’ve said and still make it interesting. Well, at least I’m interested.

  • Pingback: Your Facebook fans are worth $136.38 according to Syncapse, do you agree? | PR Blog

  • http://twitter.com/Diditdirect Bob Wydra

    I second the “great job here”, I am very happy I found your blog and the information that you put out there!

    Bob Wydra
    DiditDirect

  • http://twitter.com/sam1meta samuel a villegas

    Jeff, You really create Value Content in #SM. Keep Going…. Cheers, Samuel Villegas @sam1met:twitter a

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  • metromarks

    I tend to agree with Gabriele Maidecchi “A fan is just a person pressing a “Like” button. What’s valuable is the
    process that brings him to press it in first place, and especially what
    happens AFTER.
    Too many times businesses push all they can in order to get a Like, and then they do nothing after that.
    Fans
    are merely people up to listen to you. If you don’t tell them anything,
    they are just a number. If you tell them the wrong thing, they might
    even work against you.”

  • http://twitter.com/karyrafizadeh kary rafizadeh

    I never feel like I’m worth very much as a “fan.” I keep expecting companies to do more for their fans in terms of special offers and promotions, but I never seem to get any special treatment for the fan status! And, yes, I’m probably still stewing that since I became a fan of Dreaming Tree Wines (very good, btw) and they didn’t think send me a whole case to my front door! (ok, discount would have been ok)

  • http://twitter.com/rodonnell Rob O’Donnell

    Thanks for posting this.

    There’s no doubt in my mind that fans hold real value, in an intuitive sense as well as an ROI sense. “Proving” it out is tricky, of course. Much of my confidence in the community comes from the anecdotal information…”I just tried your product…”, “where can I buy your product…”, “I didn’t realize that you also made….”, “I’m going to recommend…”. Directional information that strongly implies intent to purchase.

    I believe that a strong majority on non-purchasing “likers” begin to purchase and that many existing customers begin to purchase more after liking.

    Setting all of that aside, the true dialog and learning that can be had with one’s consumers is priceless. Thanks.

  • http://twitter.com/shaynbaron Shayn Baron

    Not all likes are created equal. I think Facebook fans are priceless. The real value resides in the engagement, and the way you make them feel when they visit your page.