What is the purpose of Facebook “likes”, and how does that effect what they mean in society today?  I remember the excitement accompanied by first setting up a Facebook account.  After finding friends, the next step was clear – find people, shows, organizations, and pages to “like.”  At the time, public appearances seemed to be the primary goal of this process.  What would people see when they looked at your page? What kind of person did you want to look like?

This sentiment was exemplified by the popularity of “funny” pages that people liked.  In addition to liking movies and activities, you could like pages with funny titles.  Some of my sister’s (added years ago) include “Using the excuse ‘you’ll never see that person again’”, “Doing your chores like a ninja when your parents pull into the driveway”, “Track is not a sport, it’s running in circles”, and “IT SHOULD SNOW IN NEWPORT BEACH”.  In contrast to the rest of her likes, these pages exist merely to show her beliefs and reveal comments she identifies with to all of her Facebook friends.  Back in the day, many of my friends had hundreds of these types of “liked” pages on their profile.

Today, however, the motivation behind Facebook likes has shifted.  The aforementioned pages’ activity has declined significantly, and Facebook has even made them less visible on people’s profiles.  While music, books, movies, shows, people, and games remain fairly central to the profile, one must click a “Show Other Pages” link to even see the titles of the other pages the user has liked.  This change shows that people are using the “Like” button for a different purpose.

Now, more emphasis is put on Facebook’s actual effect.  After liking a page, news from that page begins to show up in the news feed.  Therefore, people are more inclined to like pages that will give them news they care about.  This ranges from political figures sending out messages to companies offering specials and information on their products.

With the motivation behind Facebook likes explained, its new purpose in society can be revealed.  Yes, they now serve an actual purpose in society that Facebook could never even claim to have foreseen.  Financial analysts are using Facebook ‘likes’ to predict companies’ worth.

Yes, you read correctly.  Studies have actually shown that 99.95% of the change in daily share price can be explained by the change in fan counts.  This finding could revolutionize the way many aspects of the stock market are examined and the way users approach Facebook likes.

(Also, as a side note to connect this concept to the election last week, Romney’s popularity falls drastically on Facebook every minute.  The website “Disappearing Romney” tracks his like count in real time, and it shows he loses approximately 847 likes per hour. This number initially shocked me, as I did not realize how actively people went back and “unliked” things on Facebook – it seemed more effort than it was worth.  However, this new analysis of likes and the knowledge that enough people like and unlike for the data to be of use to financial analysts brings some clarity to the issue.)