Like economy: What is the economic value of likes?

Abstract

The most prominent social button is the “like”, which was introduced by the social networking site Facebook in February 2009. In social media, liking is a so-called predefined communicative act, which has created a recommendation and like culture. The interactions of users with contents and with one another (in other words, the practices of everyday life, such as the consumption of goods and information) have become part of databases. Accordingly, the paper seeks to answer the following questions: How can likes be converted to revenue? Is it worth buying page and post likes? Is there any distinction between good and bad likes (cf. public customer service on social media sites)? If so, what makes a(n economically) good like? In sum, what is the economic (and communicative) value of likes?