My birthday was last week and I got the usual assortment of phone calls, texts and Facebook shout outs from family and friends. I must admit that I don’t put the same value on a Facebook “Happy Birthday” wish as I do from someone that calls me or texts me. It’s not that I don’t appreciate a FB note but if all you have to do is logon to FB, notice its my birthday and type a note in 2 seconds, it is a wish that is devoid of some of the qualities that make a personal birthday wish special – that someone goes out of their way to remember your day and makes an effort to let you know. FB has commoditized “Happy Birthday” and changed its meaning to me. Not bad, just different.
I think the same can be said about the FB “Like” button. “Like” has made it so easy and effortless to tell everyone what you “Like”, that it diminishes the value of the intent. Effort is a key component in determining the level of a person’s interest. A lead form that asks for detailed information for a life insurance quote will yield much higher quality leads than a life insurance form that asks for three basic pieces of information. Effort weeds out lower quality and lower interest. As “Like” becomes ubiquitous, it’s value as an intent indicator is lower.
This is what I think this means for FB in terms of monetizing “Like” – it won’t be the new adwords (the home run they are hoping for) but it will be a leading source of data for audience targeting (still a decent opportunity). If FB really wants to turn their data into a powerful solution, they need to harvest real search intent, either on site, or off site – which I think is still very possible and likely to happen.
