Maryl asks: Do you really "like" us?

"You like me.  Right now, you like me!"

Remember those immortal words from Sally Field’s 1985 Academy Award acceptance speech? As much as they’ve been bandied about since then, who would have guessed they’d become the catchphrase for the current social networking craze? Today “you like me” is more than just words though; it’s a button that you click on a Facebook fan or business page and it’s not to be confused with “friends” on one’s personal profile page. The distinction can be fuzzy because big name brand companies have fan pages to ultimately promote their products whereas sites and blogs like SecondLivesClub have them to create a community that is united around a topic or manifesto. So we use Facebook to get followers and to follow others and ultimately to get people to this web site. The more people who “like” you the more people have the opportunity to see what you’re posting on your page. 

As much as I hate to admit it, we’re caught up in the hustle of getting more “likes” on Facebook. But if someone likes me is she really going to follow me? I try to keep up with all the pages we’re following but there’s over 300 now. SecondLivesClub currently has nearly 400 “likes” but some of the pages I go to have thousands. It takes time to build those kinds of numbers although I have a hunch some of them cheat. Well it’s kind of cheating: you can go to web sites like www.coffeeandpower.com or www.fivrr.com and someone will get you 200 “likes” for $20, for example. These small job sites can fulfill a range of work assignments and needs for reasonable prices and have received favorable reviews. The issue with the 200 “likes” is that they will most likely not include your target audience and most likely not follow you.

SecondLivesClub targets Gen X and Boomer women, the fastest growing groups on social networks. A very effective way we’ve increased our “likes” and a following at the same time is with a practice started by a few of my LinkedIn women’s, business and reinvention groups. One person will start a discussion asking for members to leave their Facebook page addresses so others can check them out and “like” them if it’s to their liking, which it typically is since the group is already made up of like-minded people. I was part of a recent group discussion on the legitimacy of using one of these small jobber sites. In the long run it doesn’t pay off but it can be helpful for new business fan pages that need some early momentum.

So we’ll keep working the “like” numbers just because, but real success for us is when our followers comment after our blog posts. That’s how we find out what they think and are interested in and we love the input. Not everyone participates in this way and that’s okay too. I attended a social marketing seminar this week and learned that typically only three to six percent of a community actively comment and 30 percent occasionally. So like us on Facebook if you like but if you really like us, you can make a comment here.