However, these early measures are all we have so far and I do think there are some kernels of truth to them. A fan is probably (despite the slacker “likers”) more likely to buy a product from that brand.

Sadya – Without knowing what the business is, it’s a little hard to say. In these cases it’s sometimes easier to see what the company itself is really good at. If they have a ton of accounting information and are targeting new business owners than they could do something with a really cool blog or video series and use Facebook to highlight it instead of making Facebook such a huge part of the marketing plan. I’m curious now – send me an email at caitlin@caitlinmccabe.com and we can talk offline about it.

So i know that they are on facebook and linkedin , but they are more active on FB than on linkedin which they are simply using to accept invitations & are not participating in discussions. My guess is that the discussions that I keep trying to generate on linkedin would actually do better on the FB page.

What do you think?

“Now there’s research out there that suggests that people that fan your brand are also much more likely to recommend or buy from you.”

What this research shows is correlation. It’s definitely not a situation where if someone randomly fans you, suddenly they will start liking your brand. Rather, the people becoming fans of brands on Facebook are already fans of brands in real life. They already recommend and buy these brands. So the Facebook fan page should be something that capitalizes on these real, already-in-place fans and gives them a portal to come enjoy the brand and its trappings. I feel like the Red Bull site is a really good example of that.