On Facebook, More 'Likes' but Little Love: Survey Shows Brand Pages Lag Behind

When you hit the Like button on Facebook, how fascinated are you? A survey has revealed that there is actually very little love while doing so.

According to the JustAsk! Survey, conducted by audience research and targeting company Crowd Science, Facebook features like wall posts, pictures and comments led the Likes list, each having been liked by 16 percent of the respondents. The next most liked feature were the videos, with 12 percent of the respondents finding them agreeable. However, non-branded and branded pages lagged behind, with only 10 and 9 percent of respondents, respectively, ready to like them.

It is interesting to note that no single feature on the Web site has attracted a minimum of 20 percent of the respondents; a reason that could justify why the social networking giant is moving to its new Timeline layout, Crowd Science said in a press release.

These findings show that while users have been willing to 'like' Facebook items to some extent, they're far from loving the idea, said Sandra Marshall, VP of Research at Crowd Science.

Asked why they liked items, more than one-quarter of the respondents said: I wanted to show my support and/or I enjoyed what was being said or shown.

The number of respondents who offered vague and non-brand specific answers as above were more than twice the numbers of those who liked a particular item specifically because they liked the brand (14 percent). They were followed by people who stated they did so to keep informed about the brand (10 percent), to inform my friends of the brand (7 percent), to get discounts on the brand's offerings (6 percent) and to enter a sweepstakes (5 percent).

Those Who 'Like' Are Younger

Another interesting fact revealed by the survey was that those who liked branded pages tended to be younger and spend more time on the Internet.

The survey showed that people over 65 were less likely to like items in order to keep informed about brands; the figure was 1 percent compared to those aged between 18 and 64, of whom between 9 percent and 13 percent responded positively.

While 23 percent of the respondents under the age of 17 stated they would like an item because I like the brand, the number came down drastically to 9 percent for seniors, according to the survey.

The data in this study was gathered from a random sample of 1,224 respondents, between June 10 and June 22, 2011.