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Social media has increased as a marketing channel, and Facebook is the biggest social media company globally. Facebook contains both positive and negative information about companies; therefore, it is important for companies to manage their Facebook page to best serve their own interests. Although most users are familiar with business and marketing activities on Facebook, they use it primarily for fun and personal purposes. The most effective methods for companies to use Facebook have not been clear. The personal nature of Facebook presents unique challenges for companies by raising ethical and social responsibility issues that are important to users. The purpose of this paper is to discover how companies can optimize their use of Facebook as a marketing channel.

A survey was conducted. The respondents were 158 users of Facebook in Sweden; complete answers were provided by all respondents. In a series of specific questions and comments, the respondents were asked to describe an optimal marketing solution on Facebook for companies. They rated different functions, which were illustrated with pictures, to help in the cognitive process and to avoid misunderstandings.

Most users who have an opinion on the issue accept marketing on Facebook, but only in the right amount. There are basically two groups: those who think that companies have no place on Facebook and those who want companies to be active on Facebook. The latter group emphasizes the importance of meaningful posts without unsolicited sales messages, and would prefer to search for the companies themselves rather than being bombarded by company messages. By far, status updates and pictures/images were found to be the most important functions to respondents.

The sample consisted of only Swedish users. Another limitation was that, since many Facebook users do not normally think about the implications of being exposed to marketing on Facebook, they have difficulty taking a position on many issues related to the service.

The results give companies a clear idea of how to effectively use Facebook in their marketing efforts.

A large number of companies are currently asking themselves, “How can we use Facebook in an optimal way?” The results in this study answer this question and lead directly to saving time and resources for these companies.

The aim of this paper is to examine the underlying consumer behavior model of Facebook marketing for hotels, including the determinants, the process and the consequences of hotel Facebook marketing, as Facebook – the most popular social media platform – has become an important marketing tool for hotels.

The study proposed an integrated model consisting of antecedents and consequences of Facebook marketing based on both marketing and social psychology theories. A pseudo hotel Facebook page was created and an online survey was conducted to collect data. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized to test the proposed model.

The SEM results indicated the proposed model to be a good fit with the data and all the hypotheses were supported except one. The findings suggested that compliance, internalization and identification are all determinants of the customer’s attitude toward a hotel Facebook page, while hotel booking intentions and intention of spreading word-of-mouth on Facebook are two consequences of hotel Facebook marketing.

The study used a pseudo hotel Facebook page and messages created solely for the purpose of the study, and so the survey participants might not be hotel guests or hotel Facebook fans. Future research using real hotel brands, “live” hotel Facebook pages and actual hotel guests or hotel Facebook fans to collect data may provide stronger support for the integrated model proposed in the study.

The attitude toward a hotel Facebook site is influenced by the site’s congruency with the customer’s value system and personal identity with other users rather than external rewards. Hotel booking intentions and spreading word-of-mouth are two significant consequences of hotel Facebook marketing. Hotels should aim to create an interactive site for users and establish communities with a clear identity so that users can easily relate their own self-identity with other group members and maintain satisfying relationships with them.

This is a preliminary and exploratory study of the fundamental marketing mechanism of hotel Facebook marketing. The proposed model reveals not only the antecedents but also the consequences of hotel Facebook marketing. The study and the proposed model may be used as a starting point for further hospitality Facebook marketing research.

The purpose of this study is to develop a typology of social media messages to compare the effectiveness of different message strategies.

In total, 1,837 messages from 12 hotel brand Facebook pages were content-analyzed. Applying both correspondence analysis and multivariate analysis of variance, the study compared message strategy across hotel-scale levels and explored the effectiveness of different message strategies.

A typology of four-type message format and six-type message content was developed. The picture message was the best message format. Product, brand and involvement messages were shown to be more effective than information, reward and promotion messages. Promotion message was the least effective message content type.

The major limitation of this study is the generalizability owing to the sample selection process. There is also the limitation on exclusion of control variables, selection of the three effectiveness measures and evolving social media technology.

The typology of Facebook message strategy developed in the study provided guidelines for hotel marketers to create messages on Facebook pages and track effectiveness. Hotels should also take full advantage of the picture format and product, brand and involvement contents.

This study created a new typology of social media message strategy consisting of two dimensions. It also provided empirical evidence to support the application of message strategy theory in the hotel social media marketing area.

The purpose of this study was to explore the marketing effectiveness of hotel Facebook messages in terms of promoting favorable attitudes and behavior intentions among potential hotel guests

An online experiment was conducted with a three (message format) × three (message content), between-subjects factorial design in which three message formats, i.e. word/text, picture and weblink, and three types of message content, i.e. brand, product and interactive, were manipulated.

The findings indicate that the most effective message format is dependent upon its purpose. Picture messages are most effective for promoting the brand, whereas weblink messages influence intentions to book hotels based on product attributes. Electronic word-of-mouth intention is an important outcome of Facebook marketing, which can be strengthened by word messages and weblink messages about products.

The major limitation of this study is that the study used pseudo Facebook pages and messages created for each experimental condition. Facebook pages can take many forms, so the findings may not generalize to other Facebook pages.

The findings of this study suggest several important practical implications for the hotel industry to leverage Facebook marketing. To foster favorable attitudes and build brand awareness, hotel marketers should include picture messages that prominently feature the brand image. To motivate booking a particular product, word messages describing product features should be provided, along with a weblink that takes the customer directly from product information to a hotel-booking engine.

Although preliminary research has been conducted on Facebook marketing activities, little is known about the effectiveness of Facebook messages. For example, do different types of messages have different effects on marketing effectiveness? What message type is most effective? Thus, the aim of this study is to investigate empirically the effects of different message types on marketing effectiveness. The results of this study will shed light on how hotels can post the most persuasive message content in the most effective message format on their Facebook pages to enhance their fans’ attitudes and increase their purchase intentions.

The outbreak of Covid-19 increased the average time spent on social media (SM). This led to a transformation in how companies manage their digital marketing channels and created additional pressure for business-to-business (B2B) and family businesses, which tend to focus more on personal relationships with customers and stakeholders than on the implementation of digital marketing strategies on SM. The present research examines the case study of a Facebook advertising campaign created to promote the products and business values of an Italian family firm specialising in the production and commercialisation of biostimulants for agriculture.

The research aims to combine digital marketing avenues (i.e. a Facebook advertising campaign) with established psychological and behavioural theories, such as the dual process theories, by comparing the effects of two promotional videos (emotional vs functional).

The results suggest that emotional videos generate more passive behaviours, such as views, as well as active behaviours in the form of likes, comments and shares, while functional videos induce people to search for more information about the advertised products.

This is the first study to validate the role of Facebook advertising campaigns in developing an information-based approach to B2B family firms by testing the effectiveness of a targeted campaign comparing the impact of emotional and functional cues on increasing users' engagement while optimising the circulation of video content. The study helps to reduce the academic–practice gap by investigating the example of a fruitful integration between academic research and management practice.

In light of Facebook-based viral marketing and social commerce, the purpose of this paper is to test the moderating role of social identification with the Facebook profile owner (celebrity as aspirational reference group vs ingroup member (college student, same school) vs outgroup member (college student, different school)) in Facebook-based fashion brand marketing and management.

A randomized between-subjects experiment (celebrity’s Facebook profile vs ingroup member’s Facebook profile vs outgroup member’s Facebook profile vs control condition, n=73) was conducted. The sample was composed of college students recruited from a subject pool in a US university.

Results of multiple regression analyses indicate that social identification with the Facebook profile owner and ingroup vs outgroup perception moderate the influence of consumers’ materialism, fashion involvement and opinion leadership on interpersonal attraction to the celebrity, wishful identification with the celebrity, emotional quotient, involvement with the ads, advertising believability and willingness to buy the advertised fashion products. Furthermore, the results of structural equation modeling analyses show that source credibility perception (both the celebrity who endorses her own brand and the Facebook profile owner) mediates the relationship between experimental conditions (celebrity as aspirational outgroup vs same school student as an ingroup member vs different school student as an outgroup member) and the outcome variables (interpersonal attraction to the celebrity, involvement with ads, and advertising believability) in viral marketing leveraging a social media platform.

This study makes several theoretical contributions to consumer psychology and provides managerial implications for Facebook-based fashion marketing and fashion brand management.

The present study examines relationship building of major players in fashion retailing through social media. Using the theories of word-of-mouth marketing and brand community as theoretical frameworks, this paper analyses the impact of social media marketing in creating brand community. To that end, the use of the popular networking site Facebook was studied. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the extent and main purposes of the usage of this communication channel and to examine companies’ activity on their Facebook pages as well as to observe their audiences and the effect in their audiences’ engagement. Additionally, this paper analyses the main type of content and the most commonly used type of media.

Research was based on a content analysis performed on 2,326 Facebook posts; a sample of 46 international leading companies in the fashion industry was analyzed in the time period between March 1 and May 31, 2015.

Facebook audience is positively related to retailer’s size. However, audiences in this sector are not related to the level of activity of the retailers’ Facebook pages. Audience engagement and participation in fashion retailer’s Facebook sites is higher in small retailers. The main content of the Facebook pages of top fashion retailers is marketing, photo albums and videos being the most popular drivers of this means.

No previous research analyzed fashion retailers use of Facebook sites. This study examines the variables size and engagement of fashion retailers’ audience on Facebook according to retailers’ size and activity on their corporate profiles.

Social networking sites and Facebook have grown to become an important channel of interactive marketing communication with consumers for retail. The purpose of this paper is to examine the ways posts characteristics and reactions affect post popularity and engagement in retail brands Facebook pages.

In total, 18 retail brand pages out of the 120 most popular brand pages on Facebook in Greece are examined for a three months’ period (April–June 2016). In all, 2,627 posts are analyzed with the use of OLS regressions in order to identify the characteristics of posts that increase consumers’ engagement, including the newly introduced reaction feature.

The results suggest that richness of content (images and videos) and message length increase the engagement levels and the popularity of posts. Reactions have a positive effect on engagement, and negative reactions stronger than positive reactions, except in sharing. On the other hand, posting time does not seem to have a statistically significant impact on the engagement and popularity of a post.

The study was conducted during a period that reactions were only recently introduced by Facebook, therefore users and brands may not have been familiarized with their use.

The study contributes to the understanding of consumer engagement with retail brands’ pages on Facebook and social media, and the ways they use reactions and other ways of interactions with brand posts. The results can provide some insight to retailers on how to achieve higher levels of engagement for their brands through their Facebook pages, improving the effectiveness of social media marketing campaigns.

The findings contribute in understanding the ways users interact with brand posts in Facebook using reactions, using a number of popularity measures, providing useful insights about reactions, engagement and e-WoM, extending prior research.

The purpose of this paper is to add to the growing literature addressing whether, and to what extent, brand meaning is determined by corporate and consumer-generated processes. To do this, the authors compared the expression of brand meaning across three key sources i.e. first, brand strategy (i.e. traditional marketing mix); second, corporate-generated media (i.e. web site); and third, consumer-generated media (Facebook).

To address the research question of this study, the authors conducted an in-depth investigation into consumer co-creation experiences in the context of Facebook brand communities. The authors then interpreted the findings in relation to the brand strategy (i.e. marketing mix) and brand meaning expressed via corporate-generated online media (i.e. corporate web site). The authors achieved this by applying a narrative discourse analysis to textual data. To effectively handle the high quantity of textual data spawned via consumer-generated media (i.e. Facebook), the authors used a computer-assisted content analysis application (i.e. Leximancer).

In the analyses the authors found that brand expressions varied considerably across the chosen retail brands, but in all cases strong integration and alignment were present between the corporate and consumer-generated media. Specifically, the authors found that Facebook interactions echoed the brand meanings espoused on the corporate web sites. The findings indicate that online marketers can define the nature of brand co-creation, especially in the context of Facebook interactions.

For marketers who are eager to take advantage of Web 2.0 to build their brand, the findings of this research are highly significant. The authors showed that the brands developed their own interaction profiles, which allowed them to align the Facebook content with their core brand values. The results indicate that sound brand governance is articulated through the effective management of social media touchpoints by providing interactive, content rich, and relevant Facebook sites that echo core brand values.

Even though businesses have now started to penetrate the online social networks and offer direct links from corporate web sites to social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, little is known regarding the relationship between social media and traditional media in brand building. This research addresses this gap by undertaking an exploratory study of Facebook brand communities with implications for brand co-creation and brand governance.

This paper aims to uncover the drivers of consumer-brand engagement on Facebook, understood here as users’ behavioral responses in the form of clicks, likes, shares and comments. We highlight which content components, interactivity cues (calls to action [CTA]) and media richness (e.g. video, photo and text) are most effective at inducing consumers to exhibit clicking, liking, commenting and sharing behaviors toward branded content.

This study analyzes 757 Facebook-based brand posts from a media and entertainment brand over a 15-week period. It investigates the relationship between interactive cues and media richness with consumer engagement using a negative binomial model.

Results show positive relationships for both interactivity cues and media richness content components on increasing consumer-brand engagement outcomes. The findings add clarity to previous inconsistent findings in the marketing literature. CTAs enhance all four engagement behaviors. Media richness also strongly influences all engagement behaviors, with visual imagery (photos and videos) attracting the most consumer responses.

The sampled posts pertain to one brand (a radio station) and are thus concentrated within the media/entertainment industry, which limits the generalizability of findings. In addition, the authors limit their focus to Facebook but recognize that findings may differ across more visual or textual social networking sites.

The authors uncover the most effective pairings of media richness and interactivity components to trigger marketer-desired, behavioral responses. For sharing, for example, the authors show that photo-based posts are more effective on average than video-based posts. The authors also show that including an interactive call to act to encourage one type of engagement behavior has a near-universal effect in increasing all engagement behaviors.

This study takes two widely used concepts within the communications and advertising literatures – interactivity cues and media richness – and tests their relationship with engagement using real and actual users’ data available via Facebook Insights. This method is more robust than surveys or wall scrapping, as it mitigates Facebook’s algorithm effect. The results produce more consistent relationships than previous content marketing studies to date.