In typical marketer fashion, marketers are always looking to tie a number to the value of social subscribers and what it can do for a brand.  e-Marketer recently had an interesting post on “What Brand Fans Are Worth.”  Digital consulting firm, Syncapse and research company, Hotspex recently came up with a formula to determine the value of a follower/fan.

The formula found that on average a Facebook fan is worth around $136.38 when it comes to the 20 biggest brands on the site (McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Pringles, Oreo, and Skittles).

The value was determined by looking at how much fans spend on the brands’ products, customer loyalty, recommendations and earned media.

The study found people spend twice as much on products they are Facebook fans of than non-fans spend on that product or brand.  In the world of loyalty programs, this is a very interesting number.

As you may know, customers that are part of loyalty programs visit stores twice as often as non-members and spend an average as four times a much as those that are not in the program.   This study makes a good case for why Facebook pages should be part of an overall loyalty program strategy.

Though, I would go even a step further to say not only should Facebook and other social sites be a part of the strategy but so should mobile.  After all, there are 270 million mobile phones in the US, and mobile provides one of the easiest and most direct ways to improve engagement with loyalty customers.