Huh! Likes and Comments are meaningless!!

Recently during a Social Media Analytics conference I heard a very interesting premise about what we should measure as part of the social media strategy. The speaker mentioned "likes and comments are meaningless"

He referred to many things that are relevant from the Facebook pages of organisation 

• You get what you measure! So if u measure likes n comments on FB, that's what you get. That may not translate to revenue or business growth
• The concept of Like Farms that would help the social media manager to reach their targets of number of likes and comments

The secret psychologist in me was trying to relate it back to how we would think about likes and comments on FB in our personal lives.

• Scene 1: We love it when people like or comment on our profile picture changes. Instant gratification :) I look forward to people's reactions and I guess everyone does. My young nephew was recently so curious about the number of likes to one of his photos uploaded on FB. 

• Scene 2: We have some friends who would like irrespective of what we post. May be they are  really happy that we posted something or it's a moral support or just encouragement that they want to give us

• Scene 3: Likes and comments do not mean that people have read what one posted, specially if one has posted links. I can say that as the FB likes do not equate the number of reads on my personal blog!

• Scene 4: We come across some random cute baby or mothers or some emotionally appealing photos and like it without thinking much. Not that we think while on FB. I have always wondered who posts these and what the purpose could be. May be someone is desperately trying to seek likes? May be its some strategy to make money through marketing?

• Scene 5: One of my friends (in real life as well as on FB) posted on FB some sort of a test to see who actually reads what is posted and some more stuff. May be a social experiment? Would wait for him to talk about his observations and conclusions :)

• Scene 6: All picnic spots and gatherings are abuzz with people of all ages, shapes, sizes clicking their next best DP so that they can gather the most likes and comments ! I enjoy observing the madness as I also click a couple of selfies and groupies !!

• Scene 7: I can not close the blog without mentioning this old incident. Few years back my son made some new friends during a trip and they were talking. Soon it turned into a bragging discussion of I have this and that. I heard my son claiming that his mother is the best as she has 93 friends!! I was wondering where that magic number came from and then he mentioned that he had seen my FB profile. Over the years I guess I have made more friends in real life as well as on FB, hope that grows as I grow older.

All in all in this age of crowdsourcing and automation, even the social media and the impact it brings on human behavior needs to be looked at closely. Digital Humanity is the new buzzword and already part of my reading list!