This article is part two of a larger series on Calculating the value of your Facebook fans as a college or university.

Deriving Fan Value

One of the most compelling statements Syncapse made regarding understanding fan value is,

Identifying differences in behavior and motivation between fans and non-fans is significant in understanding the true value offered to an organization.

For Higher Ed, understanding the value that being a Facebook fan brings to your institution is very important, and it can be measured by looking at how engaged a Facebook Fan is with your school, versus how engaged a “non-fan” is with your school. In other words, there are certain behavioral patterns inherent to students who like your Facebook Page, and ones that don’t.

One of the things that has been elusive within Higher Ed Facebook Page management are which metrics to use in order to calculate the value of people who like your institution’s Page. Here’s a list of the variables Syncapse used for the purpose of their study, that were relevant to Higher Education:

1. Spending on tuition, books, tickets, etc…
2. Loyalty to your college
3. Likelihood to recommend your college
4. Affinity with your college’s brand
5. Media value
6. Acquisition cost

Spending on tuition, books, tickets, etc…

One of the easiest ways to determine the value of a Facebook Fan to your institution is if they become a student at your institution as a result of your Facebook marketing efforts, purchase tickets for a sporting event on campus, buy books from your bookstore, and other monetary actions.

Loyalty to your College

How loyal are the people who Like your Facebook Page? If they are a prospective student, would they be willing to apply to your institution? If they are already students, would they be willing to get involved in clubs and organizations on campus? If they are members of your local community, would they be willing to buy season tickets for your athletic organizations?

While these may vary from school to school (as some schools don’t have athletics, etc…), these are the types of questions that can help determine how loyal your fans are to your institution.

Likelihood to recommend your college

Recommending your brand to friends and family is typically considered “Word of Mouth,” which is universally respected as the most influential method of marketing. How likely are the people who like your Facebook Page to tell others about your institution? If they are prospective students, will they tell other high school classmates to look into your university?

(Since Syncapse performed the study on corporate brands, their definition of “Propensity to Recommend” focused on the probability of a person to recommend your Page that resulted in a “sale”.)

Since Higher education doesn’t have products in this commercial sense, what is our equivalent? Are we aiming to get new students to enroll at our institution? Are we aiming to get current students to become more engaged on campus? Are we seeking for members of the local community to show more support to the college? (i.e. “sale” = enrollment, increased involvement, increased support, etc…)

Affinity to your college

Do the people who like your page have good things to say about your brand? Or does it hurt when another person becomes a fan, because of the things that people are saying on your Facebook Page?

Brand Affinity is the one semi-calculatable metric that effects word of mouth. It’s common knowledge in today’s marketing community that it’s the members within a community that determine what an organization’s brand is, and how it is perceived.

Media Value

When you post an announcement, video, photo, or another type of content, what happens? If a video averages 500 views, and 50 comments when you post it on Facebook, but 300 views and 10 comments on YouTube, it may be the case that videos perform better with your Facebook community. Announcements may get shared more via Twitter, then through your Facebook community. Whatever the case, Media Value is a great way to determine the effectiveness of your various marketing channels.

Acquisition Cost

Given Facebook’s current analytics solution, it’s difficult to calculate Acquisition Cost. But if your institution had the means, it could prove extremely valuable to determine how many fans each of your fans brings/recruits to your Page, along with the role each of your fans plays in getting others to participate with your institution on Facebook.

Read Part 1 of the series for an introduction.
Read Part 3 of the series to learn about important statistics from the study.