If you're a serial liker on Facebook — you click "like" on everything you see — you're getting more and more consumer rewards.
If you "liked" Toys R Us before Thanksgiving you got a shot at a limo ride, a $1,000 shopping spree and exclusive store access before its doors opened for Black Friday sales. Travel site Expedia hosted a "FriendTrips" sweepstakes for those who liked its Facebook page, offering voyages to one of 13 different destinations.
Think of it as a social-media arms race among corporations, to see which can amass the greatest number of online followers. "It's become a real competition between companies to grow the size of that number, and to have more fans than your rivals," says Matt Simpson, of Bulbstorm, which develops social-media apps for companies. "Over the last year, we've been seeing more and more of it, and it's been driven largely by promotional applications like sweepstakes."
Corporations are doing this for a reason, of course. They're building marketing lists, aiming to boost sales and planting themselves in users' news feeds.
And while companies are happy to have you as a fan, they're really interested in your friends. If you officially like Starbucks, your friends see that you've liked Starbucks, and they become more likely to spend there as well.
"Friends of fans represent a much larger set of consumers than the brand's own fans," says Elisabeth Diana, Facebook's manager of corporate communications. "In fact they're 81 times the size of the actual fan base, so likes are a way to reach those people as well."
The promotional pushes seem to be paying off. Expedia's FriendTrips campaign garnered 900,000 new likes for the company.
Companies are now trying to figure out how to engage and entertain consumers on an ongoing basis, with a flurry of polls and quizzes and games.
"Savvy brands are starting to focus on things with more entertainment value, to keep you around longer than the seven seconds it takes to fill out a form," says Bulbstorm's Simpson.
Remember that liking something publicly makes companies keenly interested in who you are and where you're surfing.
Facebook is rolling out "Sponsored Stories" of such activity. If you officially like Target's Facebook page, a friend might get a Sponsored Story in his news feed announcing that thrilling development. So if you're uncomfortable with your personal business going public, then maybe like-bombing isn't your best online strategy.
"Facebook 'like' buttons are increasing in prevalence, raising serious privacy concerns for those who value the privacy of their online reading habits," says Rainey Reitman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Facebook late last year reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, agreeing to get users' permission before altering privacy settings and submitting to independent privacy audits for the next 20 years.
If you "liked" Toys R Us before Thanksgiving you got a shot at a limo ride, a $1,000 shopping spree and exclusive store access before its doors opened for Black Friday sales. Travel site Expedia hosted a "FriendTrips" sweepstakes for those who liked its Facebook page, offering voyages to one of 13 different destinations.
Think of it as a social-media arms race among corporations, to see which can amass the greatest number of online followers. "It's become a real competition between companies to grow the size of that number, and to have more fans than your rivals," says Matt Simpson, of Bulbstorm, which develops social-media apps for companies. "Over the last year, we've been seeing more and more of it, and it's been driven largely by promotional applications like sweepstakes."
Corporations are doing this for a reason, of course. They're building marketing lists, aiming to boost sales and planting themselves in users' news feeds.
And while companies are happy to have you as a fan, they're really interested in your friends. If you officially like Starbucks, your friends see that you've liked Starbucks, and they become more likely to spend there as well.
"Friends of fans represent a much larger set of consumers than the brand's own fans," says Elisabeth Diana, Facebook's manager of corporate communications. "In fact they're 81 times the size of the actual fan base, so likes are a way to reach those people as well."
The promotional pushes seem to be paying off. Expedia's FriendTrips campaign garnered 900,000 new likes for the company.
Companies are now trying to figure out how to engage and entertain consumers on an ongoing basis, with a flurry of polls and quizzes and games.
"Savvy brands are starting to focus on things with more entertainment value, to keep you around longer than the seven seconds it takes to fill out a form," says Bulbstorm's Simpson.
Remember that liking something publicly makes companies keenly interested in who you are and where you're surfing.
Facebook is rolling out "Sponsored Stories" of such activity. If you officially like Target's Facebook page, a friend might get a Sponsored Story in his news feed announcing that thrilling development. So if you're uncomfortable with your personal business going public, then maybe like-bombing isn't your best online strategy.
"Facebook 'like' buttons are increasing in prevalence, raising serious privacy concerns for those who value the privacy of their online reading habits," says Rainey Reitman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Facebook late last year reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, agreeing to get users' permission before altering privacy settings and submitting to independent privacy audits for the next 20 years.
