I've always been wary of tactics by companies to simply amass as many likes as possible on Facebook. In fact, the phrase "Like Us On Facebook" as become extremely commonplace and borderline annoying.
However, since 92% of people trust recommendations from their friends, compared to below 50% for other forms of advertising or endorsements (Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Survey, Q3 2011), if you have indicated you 'like' something, your friends will be more likely to favour and buy from the company in question.
Think about the process you go through to see a movie: you see the ads and read the reviews, however ultimately you probably canvass your friends and rely heavily on opinions before making the choice. I know the movie "Lincoln" has had a multitude of Oscar nominations, however a friend saying on Facebook today "Don't go see it, it's boring and I walked out the cinema" has literally nailed it for me. That one comment singlehandedly destroyed all the millions of marketing spend when it came to me and how many others reading negative tweets and posts?
Facebook social graph means that you will be able to search for companies and services from within your group of friends - the most "liked" companies will appear highest in the search results. Now the value of a like is more important than ever as Facebook goes head-to-head with Google. While Google may offer the plethora of what is available across the web, Facebook will offer what is a) local and b) what your friends like. The latter being way more important in the purchase funnel than the former.
Of course, the presence on Facebook and whole "liking process" has a long way to go. Companies need to ensure that they are in fact present on Facebook with valuable content, engagement and offerings and not simply create a page and ask for a like. The "like" will do only the part of the job that involves getting noticed.
More on this topic can be found on this blog post on Adage.com by Clara Shih.
