Keep Your Friends Close

How much value do your friends bring to you? Silly as this question may be, its one being asked in offices and boardrooms across the country. Companies are trying to understand how much a “fan”, a “follower”, or a “like” is worth.  The most common response is, “I don’t know, but more is better.” However, in this case more isn’t always better.

Social media sites leverage something called EdgeRank to determine what content is shown to people when they log in. On Facebook, it’s believed that only less than 2% of eligible content has the potential to show up in the news feed.  So, the question shouldn’t be how do I get more fans, the question should be how do I get my posts to show up more than 2% of the time. The simple answer is engagement.

When people interact with your content it’s more likely to show up again in the future in their feed and the feed of those that are “close” to them. When companies attempt to gain just any followers via contests and other means, adding them could in fact be decreasing the total value of all their fans.

So how much value do your friends bring to you? Within social media, just like the real world, in some cases less may in fact be more.