The classic question that comes up for brands and social media the world over, is ?how much is a Facebook fan worth?? While you can employ a number of methods to measure this, it is very difficult to get an accurate idea of what revenue you?re getting out of your social media presence. Largely because social media is not a direct selling platform. But that hasn?t stopped an American beer company ?New Belgium? from trying to find the answer.
They recently surveyed their Facebook fans and found that on average, their fans are spending $260 annually on the company?s products. This equates to $50.7 million in annual revenue, with 400,000 Facebook fans spread out across their products. Not a bad return on investment, given that the company had invested just $235,000 in 2011 in social media campaigns.
The results of the survey should of course be taken as tentatively as possible. Relying on a survey to determine how much your fans are spending is not going to give you highly accurate results. But as well as the accuracy of the findings, it?s also worth asking if the research is going far enough to really determine the value of the fans and indeed the overall value of having an active presence on social media platforms.
While the company have determined that their Facebook fans are currently accounting for half their annual revenue, if we are to really understand the ?value? of a Facebook fan, we need to look for wider trends such as how many new customers have been gained through social media activity, or the propensity of Facebook fans to purchase more frequently than non-Facebook fans. Though the results certainly seem positive for those that want to prove social media works, it is capable of far more than results like this will tell us.
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