Is ‘like’ a bit of a cop-out?
With facebook having recently changed its fan pages to ‘like’ pages - part of an ongoing process to make interactions across the network consistent but also part of their strategy to extend social connections across the www - the more cynical of us (not me guv), might also wonder about another underlying motivation.
Most brands don’t have that many fans and the fans they have are often hard won, acquired through in-site advertising. Not many brands are loved, that’s not to do them a disservice, because you don’t need to love all things, but you equally need many things as part of daily life.
Facebook exists to make money, they’re a business with a dominance gameplan, but they also want to increase their worth as an advertising platform. As such it’s much more likely for a customer to say they like a product, service or thing than to say they are a fan. That helps the bottom-line for a brand wishing to invest campaign money there. Like is a broader, more inclusive, but also a more superficial, ephemeral expression of sentinment. Clicking ‘like’ might just mean your customers are never going to look at your brand’s page ever again.
I still think being a ‘fan’ of something has value. It’s not right for everything, but it suggests deeper engagement with a product, a cause or a topic. As such, ‘like’ just feels like a flattening of positive customer response to the lowest common denominator.
Tags: facebook, like, social networks