How much is a Like worth? Facebook executives told The New York Times that brand mentions on the site can be connected to sales, and social media marketers should take note.
According to the source, Facebook claims TicketMaster has seen a $5.30 revenue gain each time a user makes a post about purchases with the ticket-seller. Similarly, it says EventBrite generates $2.52 for each link shared on Facebook.
“We now have a direct link between sharing on Facebook and revenue generation at ecommerce sites,” the Times quotes Dan Rose, vice president of partnerships and platform marketing at Facebook, as saying. Rose explains that the majority of the “top 25 ecommerce sites” are benefiting from tying their websites and services to the social platform via Facebook Connect and/or the Like button.
The Like button, introduced last spring, is available to third-party sites that want to encourage social sharing of their content. Brafton has reported that Facebook Likes have proven more profitable than Tweets, and the New York Times report is encouraging.
But the question on internet marketers' minds may soon become a matter of Likes versus +1s. Google's new social recommendation feature does not yet have a button available, but it could ultimately promote social clicks (and ecommerce?) directly within search results.
