1 Facebook Fan = 20 Visits to Website?

We all agree: Facebook is an excellent tool to grow an audience of loyal fans.  We see it working and we constantly seek new ways to utilize the power of a Facebook fan page.

If you don’t buy into words like “engagement” and “loyalty” and “branding” and need to see NUMBERS to prove ROI of Facebook, FINALLY….this one is for you.

1 Facebook fan = 20 visits to your website, according to HitWise and Techlightenment.

Have we truly quantified the value of a Facebook fan?  Do we have a new tool to evaluate ROI on Facebook campaigns?

Most importantly: where did this 1 = 20 figure come from?  According to a report from Experian Hitwise Intelligence:

The figure of 1 fan = 20 extra visits to a website uses a unique methodology that combines Hitwise data with data from Techlightenment. We took the top 100 retailers ranked in the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds category and benchmarked visits to those websites against the number of fans those brands had on their Facebook page. We then also looked at the propensity for people to search for those retail brands after a visit to Facebook using our Search Sequence tool.

My Opinion: I’m a big fan of quantified data and research.  Ultimately I think this new variable can vary depending on a variety of factors and I would love to see more research on this topic.  It’s a start!

Your Take: Based on your experience with Facebook, do you believe it is realistic to assume that 1 Facebook fan = 20 website visits?

Read the full article HERE:

Learn more about the research of Experian Hitwise.

Facebook Fan Page: New Metrics!

Facebook just rolled out new metrics for measuring the impact of your Facebook fan page efforts as they are placing more focus on helping businesses utilize Facebook efforts.

In my opinion, offering these metrics will enable you to recognize content that resonates with your audience (by measuring comments, likes, or via users sharing your content with others) and content that doesn’t.

I believe that when you know better, you do better.  So if this really does help you see what your audience likes that you share and what they don’t care about, you can fine-tune future content to appeal to your audience.

A note from Facebook:

We’re Making Pages Better

We want to make sure the tools you use to manage your page are as effective as possible. Here’s an update that may affect how you connect with your audience:

• Improvements to Insights: You’ll now see a new public metric called People Talking About This underneath your fan count to show the number of people on Facebook who have engaged with your page in the last 7 days. Learn more in your Page Insights.

Get on your fan page and check it out!

Weigh in: do you think this will be useful to your business?