What’s a fan worth, really?

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I simply can’t leave this one alone: so elusive, the value of a Facebook fan! Or is it maybe not so elusive? Could it really be as simple as $3.60?

Are we even asking the right question?

The company that came up with the $3.60 number, Vitrue, is the first to point out that a number like this helps brands “justify the spend they’re making, especially in acquiring a fan base.” There are no shenanigans with the math, it’s based on a $5 CPM rate which I guess is generally accepted. Here’s how they got it.

That’s a pretty solid answer to the question; I just don’t think it’s a particularly good question.

I get that we’ve spent the past several years working towards a tenable valuation model for impressions online so that we could support an advertising economy on the web. And that a Facebook fan or a Twitter follower represents a potential impression. And although a fan is likely to miss your post, so the logic goes, she’s equally as likely to see it and share it. So, network effect.

But wouldn’t it be great if, rather than speculating about impressions and impact, we could make those fans and followers “sticky” so that we could connect with them individually, make them offers, and see if they bit. That would take the guesswork right out of it!

It’s the very same idea Asa Candler had when he created coupons at Coca Cola back in 1887. The coupon, after all, is a super-effective token for tracking a promotion from offer to redemption. It creates a feedback loop and measurability. This is ironic, I think: Coca Cola has 5.4 million fans of its Facebook page. Vitrue recons that page is worth $4.5 million and could be worth $58 million. But Coke can’t reach out and engage any of those fans directly!

Publishing, on a webpage or a Facebook page or a Twitter stream or a billboard, is a one-way channel. Spray and pray, we like to say. Throw it up there and hope people notice. You pay more for a billboard on a busy highway than for one on a lonely country road… but you’re not guaranteed people will remember one more than the other. Not unless there’s some kind of feedback loop.

Coke’s Facebook page is like a billboard on a super-super-busy highway.

Social media creates opportunities to engage with massive communities of folks but you’ve got to ask them for permission. It’s not about presentation, it’s about offering value. The good news: once they’re engaged — once the feedback mechanism is in place — we can stop guessing about how much our marketing is worth. We’ll know for sure.