How many brands, campaigns, causes and status updates do you typically “like” every week on Facebook? How much weight does this carry for the brand? The answer to the former is likely to be “quite a few” and the honest answer to the latter is hardly any. Because of the frivolous nature of a like on Facebook being ultra accessible along with Facebook consumption being highly saturated, shows that a like is becoming the norm, generally actioned with no real consideration of the value to the user. Combine this with the fact that a like can not be quantified in a tangible or financial way – ultimately means a like more often than not means nothing.

You can’t buy anything, support a cause or save a life with a like. A great campaign brought to my attention recently by UNICEF in Sweden really hits home that a like means nothing when it comes to generating funds for food, shelter, supplies and vaccinations. Nothing puts the limited value of a like into perspective more than charity and this brutally honest campaign does it really well.

Cited in The Telegraph Unicef Sweden Director of Communications Petra Hallebrant said: “We like likes, and social media could be a good first step to get involved, but it cannot stop there.

“Likes don’t save children’s lives. We need money to buy vaccines for instance.”

I see a lot of this online on a smaller scale. Lots of people I know are involved in various endeavors for Charity. Their posts about raising funds, the charity they are supporting and their efforts in training or fundraising, tend to get lots of support in the form of likes. More often than not though this perceived “support” is skewed massively by the level of actual donations when you see their amount raised online. I don’t mean to suggest someone may not like a post by a brand or an individual but it’s value can be hugely questioned for the reasons already mentioned. So… if you have what you think is a high number of likes or so called “fans” on Facebook, whether it be 250 or 250,000, take a moment to consider how valuable that truly is?