It truly mesmerizes me when I think of the value of social media and how brands can use it to cash in on the real-time business opportunities it offers. Whether you are looking to market your products online or provide a superior customer service to your target audience, maturing online platforms like Facebook provide businesses a viable option to quantify their ROI (return on investment).
While using social media channels like Facebook, organizations need to look at the long-term benefits rather than trying to make a quick return on investment through campaign-based marketing efforts.
In order to leverage maximum benefits from this online platform, one needs to understand the potential difference between non-fans and fans that have actually liked your brand page. And what is the actual value of a fan?
Who are Non-Fans?
In simple terms, non-fans refer to the general mass market who's not yet interacted with your brand page and has not experienced the kind of customer service you are providing through the Facebook fan page. Remember, when you create a fan page for your brand, it is visited by both fans and non-fans.
What's important is that you should be equipped with proper strategies to show different kind of content to fans and non-fans. If you are providing a similar content view to both fans and non-fans, you are failing to exhibit to non-fans why they should move ahead and like your fan page.
By showing your non-fans what they are actually missing out by not becoming a fan of your brand page, you can entice them to become a fan. But the sad part of the story is that most of the businesses fail to understand the potential difference between a fan and a non-fan, giving both the audiences a similar treatment.
And Who is Actually a Fan?
To ensure a greater ROI, brands need to clearly comprehend the potential value that a fan can be worth of. There are a wide range of variables that organizations can use to calculate the true value of fan. The potential value of fan is actually determined by measuring the value that a fan offers to the brand.
'Becoming a fan' is just an action. It's not the value!
To measure how valuable a Facebook fan is, brands may need to use multiple variables. It's the calculated value which determines the degree of long-term benefits and short-term sales a brand is going to get from the audience that have fanned their pages.
Some of the key variables that organizations can use to calculate the potential value of their fans include the following.
Word-of-mouth recommendations
Loyalty to the brand
Spending on products or services
The degree of brand perception
A fan is a 'highly valuable customer'. A non-fan is yet to become one. Therefore, you need to understand the difference between these two segments of audience and give each of them the kind of treatment they actually need.