‘Likes’ have become table stakes for marketers leveraging social media channels. The ‘like’ has become the bare minimum for showing success. It’s a low threshold action that represents literally the bare minimum someone can do when they approve of a piece of content other than nothing. Marketers should want more.

Recruitment has been the name of the game for brands over the past few years as they worked to build a network of followers. Why? They didn’t necessarily know, but in an effort to prove the value of social media to the CMO, the number of ‘likes,’ followers and subscribers was the quickest way to show value on a scorecard. Now, marketers are starting to shift their focus to getting those they recruited to do more in the form of sharing.

The time for greater sophistication is here, and it means a shift in how businesses expect to leverage their subscribers.