Facebook fans are worth $3.60 each in media value for brands, according to research from social networking specialist Vitrue, which claims that, on average, a fan base of one million is worth about $3.6m in equivalent media over a year.

Looking at Facebook fan page data from its clients — a combined 41 million fans — Vitrue found that most fans produce an extra impression each, meaning that a marketer posting twice a day can expect 60m impressions per month through the news feed.

However, Vitrue found that some marketers generated just .44 impressions per fan, while others saw as much 3.6 impressions. The metric it came up with was based on a $5 CPM. That equates to 1 million fans being the equivalent of $300,000 in value per month.

Michael Strutton, chief product officer at Vitrue, told AdWeek this is due to sexier brands having more engaged connections, which give marketers more access to the news feed and more often.

Strutton said it’s important for marketers to leverage the fan base: “It helps [marketers] justify the spend they’re making, especially in acquiring a fan base and engaging that fan base.”

Vitrue’s $3.6m figure is based off a $5 CPM, meaning that one million fans generate about $300,000 in media value each month.

That means if you’re Starbucks your 6.8 million fans are worth an equivalent of $24.5m.  That’s not bad going for the company that has become facebook’s biggest brand.

Top ten (okay eleven) big brands and what they’re fans are worth.

1.  Starbucks 6.8 million fans are worth $24.5m
2. Coca Coal’s 5.3 million fans are worth $19.08m
3. YouTube’s 4.7 million fans are worth $16.9m
4. iTunes 3.4 million fans are worth$12.2m
5. Disney’s 3.3 million fans are worth $11.8m
6. Victoria’s Secret’s 3.19 million fans are worth $11.5m
7. Red Bull’s 2.5 million fans are worth $9m
8. McDonald’s  2,089,032 million fans are worth $7.5m
9. Nike’s 2 million fans are worth $7.2m
10. Chick-fil-A’s 1.4 million fans are worth $5m
11. Vitaminwater’s 1.3 million are worth $4.7m

One question that strikes me is does this mean anything? Is this a form of ROI? Brands are always looking to answer the ROI question. Is it going to be a help to know, to explain to people in your organisation that engaging in social media activity isn’t about meaninglessly racking up followers and fans because these people are worth something?

I think you could do this before in that you could argue these people are worth something, but a number always helps.

And what I wonder does Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz think of this? Earlier this year he said: “I think social media is a natural extension of our brand because we want to do things that are unexpected, and to speak to all sorts of people who are engaged with social media. It’s tough to measure but there is an incremental benefit to sales.”

Still tough to measure or is the job of social media getting eaiser?