I really don't understand why people "like" things in facebook like bands and movies. I understanding "liking" content that a friend has posted, whether it's a comment, link, or picture, as a vote to that friend that you appreciate their contribution. The thing that I don't get is "liking" things like movies. Maybe it's just because I view facebook as a giant data mine for advertisers, adding a vote to something like a movie or already famous band doesn't seem to help anyone other than the advertisers. You're not going to discover a new friend because you and only 192,281,928 other people like Star Wars. You're not providing your existing friends with any valuable information. Wow, you like movies, books and music - you're such a unique flower.
I just don't understand spending the effort adding content to a site that claims instant ownership over anything posted.
I think it really depends on the site and how useful the content that they post is. I definitely agree that's a complete data mine for the advertisers, but there are certain circumstances where I'm willing to accept that.
ReplyDeleteTake bands for instance. I've found out about concerts (which I then went to) from 'Liking' bands on FB. TV shows are another instance where I have no problem with them getting access to my demographic data. Why? Because I don't watch TV on 'TV', and at least this way they have some sort of a gauge of how many people are interested in their show.
Another use-case for hot-linking content on FB is definitely to drive users to the main site. I liked 'CoolMiniOrNot' (think Hot-or-Not for those figures I paint) a little while ago and am pretty glad that I did. They use their FB feed to spotlight a figure from the website daily and more often than not I've been clicking through to the main site to vote (as opposed to my non-FB-driven use of the site which was maybe every six months when I got bored or thought of it).
Speaking of TV, an example of advertisers who don't seem to get it for me would be 'How I Met Your Mother'. Every other day I have to skip over another damned Youtube vid and it's starting to get annoying. Why? Because I've already seen the content, and it's not new! (Nor do I really have the time to care.) Currently I'm leaving it 'liked' because I enjoy the show and want the number to count, but if they don't put something of value in the feed fairly soon I'll probably just ignore all their posts permanently.
There's definitely a lot of over-use going on from a commercial standpoint, but I think if the marketting teams understand it and use it properly there can be a fair amount of value to it.
Interesting. I had not really thought about actually getting useful info from the sites. Most of the things that I had seen were more along the "things you've already seen, we're just reminding you of us".
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