How valuable is a Facebook audience?

Good questions here Adam,
You are right that it is hard to say but I can say that I’ve seen people convert their audience into paying customers. The thing you have to keep in mind is that all the things you are doing now are the precursors to success. Some businesses or marketers will set up a page and then jump for joy when they get a few thousand likes. Building the audience is just the first step. Then you have to get them to buy from you.

Just make sure you are preparing a way to do that. I’m not sure what your business is but there are a lot of potential avenues that you could pursue. For example if you have a products or services that lend themselves well to online conversions (i.e. short sales cycles and ability to buy online), then you could set up a store on your facebook page (via an application). You could also use a blog to post content that is helpful for the audience and get them to come through to your website to complete a transaction or do some other thing that you have set up for them to do.

There are some more ideas in this post,

Converting Fans to Customers: How to Create a Successful Social Media Marketing Strategy | Wamda.com

Best of luck to you,

Shawn

I set up a Facebook page for my website when I first started it. I had a small advertising budget but it payed off in the end and most people who liked the page ended up becoming customers. They are definitely valuable, and the traffic I got from Facebook was much more valuable than I got from any other source.

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There are very effective ways to build a loyal Facebook following with nothing out of pocket.

What you're doing isn't bad, but you're always subject to Facebook's whims relying on a page.

Go after your market directly and engage them cold. Provide value and help them with their current situation.

This business is all about helping others and providing value at the highest level. Likes and Fans don't accomplish that.

-Mike

There are very effective ways to build a loyal Facebook following with nothing out of pocket.

What you're doing isn't bad, but you're always subject to Facebook's whims relying on a page.

Go after your market directly and engage them cold. Provide value and help them with their current situation.

This business is all about helping others and providing value at the highest level. Likes and Fans don't accomplish that.

-Mike

IMHO, I think you don't have to spend that much. Spend when you have a solid campaign or FB ads you want to try out. That way you'll how much an impact Facebook would make for your website without spending hundreds of pounds a month.

If you are picking targeted traffic for your facebook ads £2 is good budget per day. Only 1 thing I don't like about facebook is people keep leaving spamming links so you have to keep eye on it and block/delete that kind of users.

for me facebook is a waste of time and the traffic never converts

From my experience, I think that FB ads (and even more so, shady schemes like buying likes) are a waste of money. With EdgeRank, having more fans does not guarantee you that more people will see your posts -- people only see the posts from the pages that they interact with the most.

That said, I could see spending money if I had a specific campaign that was going to immediately convert to sales, but I wouldn't spend money as a growth strategy.

Of course, your situation is unique, so what's works for me might not work for you. I would be very wary of anyone who tells you that they know the right way to use FB or any other social media.