Like us on Facebook for a chance to....

I think they'd want to get in your Facebook feed. The idea would be that you're a more-frequent user of course. I'm on Facebook a fair amount when I'm home, and I see a lot from the entities I've "liked" (New Yorker et al).

I think it may be a metric they can show to advertisers and such, too -- look, we have [insert number here] likes!

Probably it's not either/ or but both. Email and Facebook. (And Twitter, and....)

There seems to be a minimum number of likes a business must have to reach/maintain some sort of position at Facebook. I get notices every now and then from some Etsy-type friends begging for help to get to the 50 like point at FB.

facebook recommends pages to your friends based on how many likes it has and how many of your friends may like the page.
it also works as running reminder that they are there because of the repeated posts that you will see on your feed page.

When someone clicks the 'like' button, facebook post that information on the person’s status wall. This means that all his/her friends will get to view the data.

The idea now is that in turn, the person’s friends will want to know what this is what their friend likes ... ... and perhaps not only visit that website but buy something, go to an event, support ....

Oh! That makes some sense.

So, if you "like" New Yorker it would target ads to your "friends" or would it target New Yorker to advertise in general somewhere on Facebook?

What doesn't make sense (to me) is that an advertiser would require me to take the extra steps required to "like" something. These are companies where I spend money and they're kind of pissing me off with these new emails.

I guess it's kind of like a manufacturer's coupon with Facebook being the manufacturer.

Oh. Wow. Interesting bit of info there. Thanks!

Thanks shewolf and Walter. I guess that would be what they call "lean in" advertising.

But it doesn't really explain why emails from companies I use have suddenly started asking me to "like" them to access their special offers.

At Facebook, you are not the customer, you are the product. The customers are the companies you refer to. They pay Facebook for access to information, and the more information you provide, the better for them. They want to try out products, refine demographic charts--they are the customers, and you are the product. Facebook produces you to sell to the customers.

Aha!

That explains it.

Many thanks!

Let me refine that with a simplistic explanation. If a page advertising apparel is "liked" by ten thousand women, they will have the age and marital status of the overwhelming majority of those women. If most of those who "like" the page are married and over the age of 30, then they would probably want to do their print advertising in Redbook and Woman's World (i just pulled those names out of the air, i'm not up on the popular women's magazines of the day). Conversely, if most of the women who "like" a page are single and under the age of 25, then they mmight want to spend their advertising dollars in fanzines and teeny magazines. As i said, that's over simplification, but basically, they're seeking demographic information to target their advertising and their products more accurately.

not necessarily.

You can control both what info you send out and the info you receive.

I have a group of people who are sent no notifications of anything I post (as I've set it that way). There are also some types of notifications I don't receive (as I "told" FB to remove those from my permissions). I can also send targetted notifications specifically to about 5 groups I've set up in my account. The hardest part (in a way) is keeping the groups updated.

That's not accurate, Facebook let's them target ads to demographics but lets them do so to anyone, regardless of whether you liked them and liking them doesn't help them in this way, it helps Facebook that way. Facebook then uses this data to target ads, but the companies asking you to like them are almost always doing so because they want eyeballs, it's almost never for the demographic data (which is more useful to Facebook.

Once you "like" them, they can send free ads to you instead of having to pay for the demographically targeted ones. You are subscribing to their ads and that is their motivation, it's almost never data collection but a free audience for promotional posts.

My comment about demographics was how the information can be used after it is collected. I made no remarks about the relationship between Facebook and their customers. But then, straw men are your stock in trade.

Facebook sucks, don't participate in their data mining scam... like nothing, post nothing, respond to nothing you don't have to. And good luck cleaning their tracking cookies off of your computer...

Cycloptichorn

But I'm already subscribing to their ads -- that's why I get emails from them.

In the last week almost all of those emails have asked me to "like" them in order to take advantage of the offer and I find this very confusing.

Why would an advertiser want me to have to take an extra step?

For example: the other day I got an email from a Halloween store. Since I was going to be going over there anyway I opened the email to see if they had a coupon. They did -- but you had to "like" them in order to get the coupon. I ended up going to a different store where I knew all of their Halloween stuff would be on sale.

Their strategies may not always be effective. I am often hilariously amused at some of the stupidity of "tech-savvy" people when dealing with the real world.

I said my examples was simplistic, and i wasn't claiming it was an accurate representation of exactly what goes on there. But to claim they don't mine demographic information would be hilariously stupid. If advertisers did not pay attention to the reaction to their products and advertising, they would be hilariously stupid. I suspect that ad agencies who do hilariously stupid things online last about as long with their customers as do agencies who make horrible gaffes in print or in broadcasting.

I didn't think it was very interesting and never got into using it. Those "be my friend" requests were kind of creepy to me.

I started a thread about the creepy friend recommendations i got from them. I "like" almost nothing there, except the posts of the people i play games with, and that's to let them know that i've filled a general request they've published. In fact, i usually post a comment, and that comment is almost always "clickity-click." I want them to know i've helped them, so they'll think of me and help me when they see my requests.

In fact, i don't think i've ever "liked" any advertising page.

I think it's about the "a gazillion people like us" tag on their Facebook page. It has the same benefit as a Google "results" count or an Amazon sales rank. It's crude but easy-to-mine data, showing that the company and its products matter to someone. It looks good to potential future investors and customers. Also, your "like" vote brings their company to your friends' attention so they might check it out as well.