Marketers are clamoring for data to determine the ROI of their social-media efforts, and a new free tool called the Social Page Evaluator, from social media management company Vitrue, is here to help. It’s designed to assist marketers as they try to get a better grasp of the value of a brand’s Facebook Page.
A Facebook Page is commonly referred to as “fan page”, and its purpose is to provide a platform for brands to connect and communicate with their audience. Pages come in many varieties: they can represent actual brands, organizations, non-profits, and other entities — including people, blogs, etc. When you engage and opt-in on a brand’s Facebook Page, you “like” (formerly “Become a Fan”) them.
The Social Page Evaluator is easy to use. Enter the URL of any Facebook Page and it will examine its fan count, post frequency, and various fan interactions with the Page and calculate a valuation. The formula used by the application is related to the formula that Vitrue recently released to estimate the relative value of Facebook Fans to large brands. The tool is adjustable and interactive — for example, the base rate of Earned Media Value (or CPM) is $5, but this can be adjusted higher or lower. There is also a “Fan-tasize” section that enables you to tweak other features like number of posts per day, engagement level, and fan count to see how these impact the valuation.
The interface allows you to compare a Facebook Page with up to three other brands and to view a Page’s value history. In addition to the valuation data, there is also a list of best practices for getting the most out of your Facebook Page that offers a breakdown of contributing factors to your Page’s current value and suggestions about how to improve engagement.
This tool isn’t completely scientific, but it’s one way way to gauge value of a Page to advertisers and to see the factors that impact a Facebook Page valuation. It’s also a good catalyst for thinking about the potential advertising power of a Page.
