Are you prioritising Facebook Share over Facebook Likes?

It’s easy to get caught up in the Facebook like craze that’s been sweeping websites, but are web and social media masters missing a trick by focusing on the Like over the Share?

So let’s start with the difference. A Facebook Like is a vote for a link and its content. A Share is exactly what it says… the user sharing the post, image, link with their social network. This is important because of the way Facebook news feed works, a user simply Liking an update is not enough to guarantee their friends will see it in their feed when they log-in, there’s too many variables that get in the way.

For instance, if a friend also Likes your brand page then they will likely see the update their friend has just liked, however friends who have never interacted with your brand won’t see the Like. Contrast this with a Share where the user is specifically saying “look at what I’ve found”. A Share acts more like a normal status update.

A Facebook Share on the other hand is a massive signal sent up by the user that tells their friends they want them to engage with the content  by reading, Liking or Sharing it as well.  If we want the best results we need to go after the big win of Share over the small signal of the Like. Sure it has value, but the ability of the Share to reach a wide number of people and then in turn generate Likes can’t be ignored.

Rework strategies

• It’s time to rework strategies to take account of the way Facebook has now positioned Share’s feedback markers in updates, we should be encouraging users to Share content not just to hit the Like button and take no other action. Competitions should be based on Sharing the update, not just Liking the post.

It’s also worth checking out Google Plus the Android application for that social network is very powerful and makes building your social network simple.