The value of social interactions — decoded

In South Africa, brand pages on social networks are undergoing an evolution. What began as me-too mania as they all flocked to platforms like Facebook and Twitter simply because everyone was doing it, is now slowly becoming a far more nuanced and strategic understanding of the role these platforms can play in a broader communications strategy.

Central to this shift is a focus on creating value-added content. This in itself is a seismic shift for many brands whose social pages have been filled with nothing but bland marketing pulled through from above the line and a never-ending stream of content for content’s sake (think irrelevant motivational quotes and the desperate sharing of the latest memes in the quest for attention).

As more brands begin to dip their toes in the waters of unique, valuable content creation, the way success is being measured in social is changing too. While a follower or a page ‘like’ used to be the social metric, it’s becoming increasingly clear it’s becoming more about how people actually resonate with your content.

The value of an interaction should be determined by the level of engagement required by the user to perform that action, and then the ultimate value of that interaction in terms of how it may amplify that post and extend its reach. This concept can be illustrated as follows:

With this in mind, we compiled the following guide to understanding the relative value of social interactions on Facebook: