Lately in my effort to grow Xava, I have come across a lot of people trading Likes on their business pages. While it is a good practice to support your fellow entrepreneurs in growing their fan base but have you ever thought what a like is worth? Or more importantly what YOUR Like is worth to the business page?

Let me put this very delicately because I know that your Liking of a business page was well intentioned – It is worth NOTHING!!

If you dont engage after Liking the page that is. Let me explain.

Relationship building is the Holy Grail

Yes even in the business world. If it wasn’t large business would not have account managers, relationship managers to look after large customers. They would not spend thousands on Facebook and Twitter campaigns that invoke a response from their audiences.

To understand this, we need to look at relationship building.

Relationship Building in Everyday Life

Imagine you are out and you see someone that you like, you try talking to them and get their phone number. And then you try and get a date with them and yearn to reach ‘First base‘ as is more commonly known. As time goes by you fall in love and then you want to get married and then have a family (well ok not everyone does but you get the idea). You are constantly looking to grow the relationship to the next level and marriage is the ultimate goal that we reach in a human relationship.

Alternatively, becoming someones best buddy is the ultimate goal in making friends because we all need that friend who can be relied upon no matter what the circumstances.

Getting married to the love of your life or finding that best friend makes you feel a sense of fulfilment, a sense of achievement and a sense of pride.

Relationship Building on Facebook

Using Facebook marketing to build an audience and brand ambassadors who will talk about your brand till the cows come home is the ultimate goal for your business being on Facebook. You try and get their Like which is like getting a phone number of the person you met. After that point it is up to you as a business owner to cultivate the relationship by constantly providing content that is going to invoke a response from your Likers. Think of it as having a conversation with your Likers. Why would you shy away from it? It is at this moment in your Facebook marketing, you need to resist the urge to sell or pitch your business, just talk.

Even on Facebook, hidden behind a computer or a mobile, there are people using their emotions to evaluate you so why not converse with them? It is the quality of our interactions with our friends and loved ones that determines how they see us and so it is in the business world. Your followers will evaluate you and your business based on the strength of your content so dont just try and sell to them. There is an interesting blog on Making money on Facebook by Kim Garst of Boom Social.

After you have a loyal audience, you need to reach the Holy Grail of being married to your likers – you want them to constantly talk about you and your business with their friends, family and colleagues because now your influence is multiplying not just adding up. It is going from strength to strength and once you have got people to talk about you, you dont have to wait long to see that engagement turn into revenue.

So you see the rules we have in our everyday lives of cultivating relationships also apply to our social marketing, here is a blog I wrote on what to do and what not to on Facebook

Summary

1. Facebook marketing is all about moving away from looking for Likes, it is all about getting recommended for Likes.
2. Even on Facebook, you are dealing with people so normal rules of relationship building apply
3. Make friends for your business not number of Likes
4. Work on turning those friends into brand ambassadors through strength of your content
5. Make money and enjoy the fruits of your hard work.

Share your thoughts and leave me a comment!