One Facebook fan = 20 web visits

The statistics look good, but the visits are only possible if the fan is encouraged to share his feelings.

Also many users 'like' a facebook page just because they had a good experience with the brand or product. This surely wouldnt give you web hits.

A more correct heading will be 1 Loyal follower = 20 web visits.

The most important part of this whole article is the latter part of the very last sentence: "the real test is how much of this traffic converts into sales."

Though depending on how one measures conversions as there are macro- and micro- conversions, I'd be more interested in knowing the engagement value of these 20 web visits.

Taken from the Hitwise page: "Our data shows that for the top retailers, even if they have no Facebook fans they can still expect to receive on average 62,000 visits from Facebook each month."

That's a pretty jaw-dropping statement until I re-read it. Then the word "top" stood out, as in top retailers whose brands are already well established in the public's mindset.

For a smaller business, especially one that doesn't have multiple outlets spread across the UK, people aren't finding you in droves via Facebook. You will still need to develop an aggressive online marketing strategy and build your brand name up so people will talk about you and link to you on Facebook.

I'll give you another example: if Coca-Cola didn't have an official page on Facebook there would still be fan sites for their product, and those fans would be substantial. That's because Coke has spent billions on TV/print/radio ads for decades.

I still believe that Facebook can drive great quality traffic and help brand your company with consumers but the Hitwise article, and the subsequent reporting, makes it sound like Facebook sends traffic to all companies equally.

Interesting comments above as an analyst for Experian Hitwise perhaps I could address some of the points made.

Tim - you're absolutley right not all data is captured because of the use of various mobile apps so actually the overall impact of acquiring through Facebook could be much bigger than our data indicates.

Vishwas - the Facebook 'like' means that people are endorsing a particular brand and in doing so allow that brand to send them messages through Facebook which will appear on their wall. We have shown that this does in fact give you more web visits, as people who see messages from brands they have liked before do tend to visit the website to buy products but also the viral nature of Facebook means that friends will also see the branded message and will visit the company website as a result.

Nick - retail certainly is sexier than some of the other brands on Facebook and our data shows that in particular the fashion brands are leveraging the power of Facebook the best. However, there are other non-retail brands which have managed to achieve huge success through Facebook, Compare the Market being the obvious example.

Kelly - you're absolutely right but any search expert will tell you that generally speaking more visits = more sales. The more eye balls you get coming to your website, the more likely you are going to convert some of those into sales. That's not a hard and fast rule, but the beauty of Facebook fans is that you already know these people like your product or brand on some level and are therefore more likely to convert to a sale than someone randomly coming to the website from a paid link.

Graham - we always try and meet scepticism with cold hard fact. The Experian Hitwise data smaple is the largest in the world. We monitor over a million websites every single day and 50 million search terms every week from the UK online population, so we are better placed than anyone to say how likes on Facebook are affecting traffic to other websites.

If you want to find out more about our methodology or how we can help your brand online, please get in touch:

"The figure of 1 fan = 20 extra visits to a website .... We took the top 100 retailers ranked in the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds category and benchmarked visits to those websites against the number of fans those brands had on their Facebook page."
Am I misunderstanding or does this not take account of people who like (as in share) one of the retailer's website pages - this will drive visits to the website (as friends will see the liked page in their news streams.) But you don't have to be a fan to like a website page ...?

@Patrick, @Malcolm,

I found the "snake-oil" part.

From the original hitwise article, which only seems to have some spam comments:

"We then also looked at the propensity for people to search for those retail brands after a visit to Facebook using our Search Sequence tool."

So Facebook (which presumably people got to via Google) - then are encouraged to search (20 times a year) in Google for the brand which Facebook introduced them too and not the actual store or its TV advertising or its history or any other marketing.

Ergo, in facto, bullshittio continuoso :

"each 'top' retailer on Facebook can expect to receive an average of 62,000 visits per month from Facebook, even if they have no fans. "

Right then.

So to be a top Facebook marketing success, and drive traffic via Search as result, you don't even need Facebook Fans - you just need to be a 'top' Retailer.

I'm sorry, really? what are you guys sniffing? pass it round please!

Um, why was my comment deleted?

Hi, James. Thanks for the answer. I still don't really get this.

There are two ways people can reach a brand's website from Facebook.

One is if they are fans of the brand's FB page and respond to a brand's status update that links to the brand's website.

The other is if they see a friend of theirs share a page by "liking" it (whether that friend is a fan or not, and regardless of whether they themselves are a fan).

I can see there being a high correlation between FB fans and website visits. But the jump to a 20:1 figure is too far, surely? It completely ignores the effect on traffic due to people sharing URLs - which is why they can get 62,000 visits even with no fans. Or am I being thick?

It's nice to see a useable, clear stat on Facebook pages and why they are worth investing in. Definitely a good one to use in conversation when speaking to the unconvinced...

However, whilst this may be a useful opener when chatting, the real work is making the page work in other ways than just sending traffic. Like everyone says, converting that traffic to sales - but also what about engendering loyalty (which is hard to measure), building awareness, encouraging advocacy and so on...

However it's still a nice stat, thanks for bringing it to our attention! : )

Correlation is not causation.

The Top Brands will get more traffic anyway, better positions and better CTR's in Natural Search.

Therefore the number of visits to a website will grow exponentially the stronger the brand.

It just so happens large brands with big customer bases find it easier to grow Facebook fanbases as well.

Don't get me wrong. Facebook fanbases can generate traffic, but trying to tie this all up so neatly doesn't work.

I’ve redone the math and estimate the effect vanishes (click my name for the link).

Issues are that Fashion retail searches after FB visits are increased:
* by 103.5% because of the greater number of women in the sample.
* by 114% because of the greater number of young people in the sample.
* by 114% because both are more common at non-work times.