Facebook Like Button. Launch a new business?
It has only been a few months and we've already seen a proliferation of uses for the Facebook "Like" button. Since the launch, I've gotten questions from clients and the press alike about the Facebook like button and whether it can meaningfully impact digital businesses. Those questions fit broadly into three implementation categories - liking pages on Facebook, liking pages on websites and liking objects on a web page. So do like buttons make a difference to a business beyond the vanity benefits of saying that you have more likes than your closest competitor?
The basic options for Liking -
- Liking Brand Pages on Facebook. Liking pages on Facebook is old news. It is in fact just a variation of "fanning" pages for which there's continuos debate about the value. In fact, as my friend Joe Marchese pointed out to me just yesterday, the more pages that people like (and they are liking more everyday), the harder it will be for a brand to break into a user's newsfeed. Also, the more pages that we like, the more we'll be asked to like and comment on those wall posts and the lazier we'll get at it. Call it the law of liking diminishing returns.
- Liking Pages on Websites. Liking pages on websites is more interesting as it lets your consumers push their like choices back into the Facebook newsfeed of their friends. Furthermore, you can expose your wall in a box on your website too. It is worth pointing out though that the law of liking diminishing returns applies here too. The more websites that are liked, the more notifications that will fight for attention in a person's newsfeed and the less visibility any single notification will get.
- Liking Objects Around the Web. It is liking objects on a page of website that is the most exciting piece. Why? Because when you attach the like button to objects on a page, it can serve as an endorsement. The number of people that like a pair of jeans or a hotel or a music system can influence whether someone else will buy that product or not. What's more people can view all the likes for a particular product filtered by their social graphs (don't tell me how many people liked a particular music system in the world, just tell me which of my friends did). The Levi Friends Store has already implemented this (see above) and it works quite well.
More Imaginative Uses of Like Features
But there are some even more interesting uses of this Facebook button that are worth discussing.
- Serving as a Product Rating. The like feature can serve as not just an endorsement but also as a form of ratings with the number of likes serving as the ratings. Think back to what companies such as Amazon.com and BazaarVoice have pioneered in the ratings and reviews space - that has evolved with the like button. A retailer choosing to implement a traditional ratings or reviews solution may feel inclined to go with Facebook's Like implementation either instead or in conjunction with a more traditional ratings and reviews widget. Not surprisingly, third party ratings and reviews solutions, leverage Facebook Connect too now.
- Liking a Brand and a Product jointly. The Like button can be used to endorse both a brand and products within that brand family especially if the button is used with the "Like Box" functionality from Facebook.
However, there's a risk in doing this. The word "like" can be ambiguous. I may like a brand, lets say Apple for example but maybe not the Apple TV product. Normally, this confusion would be rare however if a brand chooses to mix and match liking at the brand level and liking the product level too much, then users won't know what exactly they're liking when they press the like button. And the value of liking a product will lose its meaning and the ability for the number of likes to serve as a product rating.
Companies choosing to implement the like button must ask themselves whether they're doing so as a brand affinity action or as a rating one. And they should be careful not to mix the two even though it might be a clever way to increase the total number of likes associated with the brand.
- Creating New Services for Consumers. With the ability to like products on websites, arises a unique opportunity to create intermediary services that aggregate all the likes for all the products in a particular category. You currently have intermediary companies aggregating products and services in several industries already including the travel and hospitality business (Orbitz, TripAdvisor, Yelp) and Financial Services (MINT, CreditCard.com) for example. But there's a new opportunity created with the Like Button.
Think about it this way. I suspect few people in the hotel industry really like TripAdvisor too much. The anonymous reviews posted on TripAdvisor can make or break an individual hotel property. The hotels don't mind customer reviews but they couldn't be happy about the fact that consumers can post anonymous reviews. With anonymous reviews, the hoteliers don't know whether the review is genuine and they certainly don't know how to reach out to the person to learn more about the complaint or the accolades. Enter the Facebook like button where reviews are not anonymous because they're tied to your social graph. Whatever you review, you invariably do so with more sincerity knowing that everyone in your social graph will see what you've liked. That's all well and good but now imagine this scenario -
What if all the hotel chains - Intercontinental, Wyndham Worldwide, Marriott International, Hilton and Starwood bandied together to launch a new website that simply served up all the Facebook likes for all their hotel properties jointly. This would be valuable to consumers who'd be able to view which hotels are most liked by their social graph for any given criteria (location, price etc.). If no one in their social graph has liked the hotels in the location, they'd at least be able to see likes of other people who arguably would be more sincere in the hotels they chose to support because they wouldn't be anonymous. The hotels will be able to see who is doing the liking and will be able to respond to criticisms and complaints more accurately. It would be a win - win all around.
Now let's pause for a moment. What started as a simple post about the "like" button from Facebook has turned into a rather broad one on how industries can take control back from intermediaries using social technologies. It requires competitors to choose to partner together or even with the intermediaries directly too, for them to recognize that when they partner, they can provide greater value to their customers and also in turn greater value for their businesses. That's the power of the Like button and social technologies. These are opportunities not to be missed. Will your business jump at this?
Follow me on Twitter (@shivsingh) for more insights on digital strategy and social media.
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