Why are companies with Facebook profiles on the hunt for more “Likes”?
It could be one of the following reasons or in most cases all of them:
To gain more social media fans, to gain brand exposure, to position their brands in the eyes of the consumers, and ultimately to effectively utilise this medium to run competitions and promotions.
As the Social Media Expert at SAbest it intrigues me as to why Facebook users do not want to like a Company or Brand on Facebook. I did some research to see why and what expectations people have when they do interact with a Company or Brand socially.

There are various reasons why Facebook fans don’t “Like” a Company on Facebook:

• 54% don’t want to be bombarded with messages or ads,
• 45% don’t want to give any companies access to personal profile information,
• 29% don’t want companies to contact them through Facebook,
• 23% don’t see the benefit of it,
• 4% don’t understand what it means to “Like” a company.

If a Facebook fan likes your Company page, it is very important to observe that they do so with an expectation. People don’t just “Like” every page on Facebook, they “Like” it for a reason. Fans like Company pages to gain access to exclusive content, events, sales or promotions.

47% of users “Like” a page to receive updates about the company, persons or organisation in their newsfeed. 26% want to interact with the page owner. The survey also shows that only 24% want to be contacted through other social media channels such as Twitter once they have interacted with a company on Facebook. 37% do not expect anything to happen.

Media such as photos and videos always perform well on Facebook. It grabs attention in newsfeeds and it is easy to share.

Just ask. People like to interact with each other so ask for those opinions on topics, and if you want your fans to share favourite content, go ahead – ask them.

One of a fan’s expectations is that the page owners will thank them for their replies and for sharing their opinions. From time to time, talk about things other than your products. Wish them happy holidays. Ask them fun questions or to share their personal stories.

Remember, if a fan likes your page; interact with them, because it’s one of the biggest expectations any Facebook Fan has.

In the past – if you wanted user activity on your website, you needed to add a sign up process with complicated authentication code just to create an account for the user on your system.

Often visitors are unwilling to register for a new account on a site they do not know – because they simply don’t trust the website with their personal information such as emails and passwords.

To attract more visitors, make it easy for them to join and participate on your website by integrating Facebook Connect / other similar authentication methods.

For the purpose of this article I will discuss in short Facebook Connect.

Facebook Connect allows users with Facebook accounts to login to third party websites (your website) by simply clicking on a button and filling in their Facebook login information.

Facebook returns a user id of the user that successfully logged-in, which allows you to identify that specific person.

This doesn’t only allow you to display the user’s profile picture, a link to their Facebook profile and allow them to comment on your content but also allows you to update their feed dynamically which is seen by their friends and many more.

Here are a few reasons why Facebook Connect could work for your website:

• Trusted Authentication
  Simplified login – the user has total control over permissions granted.
• Real People
  Facebook users commonly use their real name and real identities.
• Share your information
  With Facebook connect users can share your content/products/services with their Facebook friends. This can generate more traffic to your website.
• Friends
  Visitors that are connected to your website can see which of their friends are also using your website.
• Dynamic Privacy settings
  With Facebook connect a Facebook user brings their privacy settings with them to your site. This builds trust for your website which means users are more likely to return to your site in future.

In conclusion: I expect a lot of websites, especially news and social websites, to implement Facebook connect/similar authentication methods in 2010. Implementing it on your website will give you the edge in 2010 by giving your customers the opportunity to give you feedback and share your product/ service/content with their friends online.