• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 31, 2011

Converting a thumbs-up on Facebook and now a click on Google +1 into a loyal brand fan doesn't come easy for some advertisers, but a tool from PowerReviews might have solved the dilemma.

PowerReviews on Monday plans to unveil Facebook Accelerator, a tool in the Facebook OnSite suite that enables brands to convert loyal product reviewers into loyal Fans by building it into the submission review process, Nadim Hossain, VP of marketing firm PowerReviews, told Online Media Daily.

Facebook Fan Accelerator gives advertisers the ability to acquire loyal Facebook Fans and integrate the "Like" function within the review submission process. It also provides an option to automatically publish review comments to Facebook Fan pages. The software-as-a-service platform doesn't require development. "A group of customers have begun to use the platform," Hossain says.

The company also will release data to help advertisers quantify Fans and comments. It estimates the sales value of each review shared on Facebook is $15.72. Findings also suggest 57% of reviews written by Facebook members are shared on their Facebook streams, 70% of Facebook-shared reviews receive Likes or comments, and 4% of all reviews are shared to Facebook. The company bases the method to determine cost and percentages on four pillars: number of Facebook friends, CRT, conversion, and average order value.

PowerReviews also found that integrating Facebook Connect into the review submission process delivers five times more shares than the commonly deployed Facebook Share option. Plus, 7% of all reviewers verify their review using Facebook Connect, which automatically builds a reviewer profile based on their Facebook information, with some retailers seeing verification numbers of up to 13%.

Social commerce, in its early days, will need to mature a bit before Fan Accelerator supports Google +1. But some industry experts might think it careless for PowerReviews to leave that opportunity on the table. Tools similar to Fan Accelerator will become more important as social signals and comments become a bigger part of marketing and branding efforts across social networks and search engines.

"You can make reviews one-step more social by increasing someone's identity," Hossain says. "It is early days for Google." "Increasing someone's identity" spurs connected friends to take action. Someone sees a friend's click on the Google +1 button and the likelihood that person will click on the ad or through to the Web site is that much greater. Next, perhaps, advertisers will need to qualify clicks on Google +1, as PowerReviews and others try to determine the worth of comments and reviews.