We all want to be liked, right?  We need to feel that sense of community and when someone likes us, that makes us feel like we belong to something greater.  Its the same in social media communities as well.  As individuals we want to know that what we are sharing, people are finding valuable enough to share with others and thus liking not only ourselves but what we contribute to the social groups we find ourselves in.

As individuals, people, human beings … -we- -get- -that-.

Businesses, not so much.

Radio Silence Doesn’t Get You Much

At any given time you can find numerous ads on your Facebook news feed screaming at you to “Like Us”.  On printed literature, billboards, commercials and even radio spots you hear “Like Us”, “Follow Us”, “Become Our Friend”.  People generally hit the like button because they are attached in some way to a brand, a concept, or and idea.  But what happens after they hit that like button. 9 times out of 10, … its this:

Businesses don’t engage with those who are liking them.  They just have a fan page, or a twitter account because they were told somewhere along the line that they needed to have this new social media thing.  So if all you are getting is a raw number of fans only clicking a button, what’s the point?

Understand the Value of Your Fans, Friends & Followers

When you engage as a business with your community, you provide them value.  When you provide your community value, they want to share you with their network of friends, family members, and colleagues.  Does your business truly  understand the value of that?

You can work out fancy formulas to give a monetary value to each friend, fan or follower you acquire, but businesses really need to understand the conceptual value of building a fan base and utilize it to drive value -and revenue- back into the business.  When you engage with your fanbase, what happens?

• Do you know if your traffic increases to your site?
• Is what your engaging your audience with getting shared on:
  • Facebook walls
  • Sent in emails
  • Retweeted
  • Added to Google Plus
  • Sent to Groups in LinkedIn
  • Placed into StumbleUpon
  • Added to a Stack in Delicious
  • Pinned on Pinterest
• How does the value you provide spread among your followers networks and at the end of the day, will that exposure bring you new business?

Providing content that resonates with your fanbase is vital, and not just text content but audio and visual content as well.  You can’t just say “Like Us” anymore.  Or even “Like XXX, Like Us Too!”.  Social Media users are becoming savvier by the day and if you are just paying for the raw number of attaining fans/friends and not providing some kind of value, you are essentially loosing money – you paid for something (those likes) and you aren’t utilizing them to their ultimate potential.