Wait, that’s kind of a silly question isn’t it? How can a Facebook page be worth money? It’s free, after all. Excluding all the time and work you spend into keeping it updated with new content and uploading pictures and responding to everyone’s comments…

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, YouTube, Flickr and all the social media networks out there aren’t about money. They’re about engagement; interacting with your customers, clients, friends, followers and fans is the number one priority. But that interaction and engagement is what ultimately leads to buying and, better yet, brand loyalty.

Vitrue, with its new Facebook analyzer, calculates that our client Richmond International Raceway’s Facebook fan page is worth nearly $98,000. It assumes that the average earned media impression is about $5 for each fan (all 9,000 of them who interact with on the page about 4,000 times per month…numbers that are growing every day and month). But when you think that each race ticket is about $40 and “tchotchkes” (hats, stickers, programs, pictures, posters, etc.) start around $10, the fan page’s worth SKYROCKETS!

Richmond International Raceway’s social media engagement during race-week, alone, is enough to fill up your inbox with Facebook and Twitter notifications. During race-week this spring, the raceway’s social media “buzz” (posts directly mentioning RIR and/or its events) surpassed 10,000 posts in just 7 days!

So, go ahead! Upload those pictures, comment on the wall; share your stories and interact with your fans and followers. Keep them engaged so you can keep them coming back as happy customers.