Getting “liked” on social media is a coveted experience that many brands and individuals strive for.
Likes are often used as a metric of success but a study by Tulane University will not be “liked” by many social media marketers.
According to the study, What are likes worth? A Facebook page field experiment, “if companies want to convert social media fans into more active customers, they have to engage them with advertising.”
This means opening up your wallet to pay and promote your content on Facebook. Without it, you’re just another post among the millions that are getting posted to the social network. The only way you can stand out and reach a more targeted audience is using targeted advertising.
Here’s how Facebook’s algorithm works
Facebook tries to match content and posts based on your activity and your interactions with people, brands, and groups. As you use the social network, Facebook adjusts the content that you see in your News Feed.
“There is now far more content being made than there is time to absorb it. On average, there are 1,500 stories that could appear in a person’s News Feed each time they log onto Facebook. For people with lots of friends and Page likes, as many as 15,000 potential stories could appear any time they log on.” – Brian Boland, of Facebook, said in a blog post
This means producing content that engages your target is extremely important. You are constantly competing against your follower’s friends, family, and posts that they are actively engaged with. 
You must have this mindset for each and every post you are doing on Facebook. If you try and use one-size fits all approach for your posts, you’ll strike out every single time.
Why advertising is a smart investment on Facebook
Researchers for the study invited new customers to take a survey and randomly invited them to like a health insurance wellness program called Discovery Vitality. Those who weren’t invited were part of the control group.
Customers were able to earn points if they practiced healthy behaviors.
What researchers found was that over a four-month period there was no difference in points earned. However, when Vitality paid Facebook to display two posts per week to the liking group for two months, that group earned 8 percent more reward points than those in the control group.
This suggests that Facebook Likes are generally worthless on its own.
According to a study from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, an Australia-based marketing think tank found that only 1% of Facebook fans engage with brands after liking its Page. So even after someone likes a Page, very few are engaging that Page after the fact.
Another factor is organic reach has declined over the past few years. If you’re not advertising and promoting your content then your fans are likely not seeing your posts.
While a little dated, Locowise calculated the organic reach by Page likes in March 2015.
Data: Locowise
Generally, Pages with more than 1 million Facebook Likes received less organic reach than those with less than 1,000 likes. It’s likely that these numbers have been reduced since being published. I wouldn’t be surprised to see those numbers 50% to 75% lower for current Page reach.
How to maximize engagement
Focusing and boosting individual posts and articles will, over time, help grow your overall brand.
It’s important to have people like your Page but expecting people to take future action on your posts after “liking” your page is unlikely unless you’re motivating your followers to act. You do that by answering your follower’s questions and producing unique content.
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Joe Gullo