Using the honeycomb model to analyse engagement on social media: a case study of a Portuguese company

Internet consumption behaviour has changed and nowadays consumers are using social media platforms to co-create, share, modify and discuss content. Social networks sites (SNS) gained relevance in this new paradigm, namely as a communication tool. However, effective incorporation of such channels in the communication strategies seems to be more difficult to B2B firms than for B2C. Actually, B2B companies establish fewer relationships than B2C do; however, when established, these connections are normally moredirect, strong and relying on trust (Silva et al. 2012; Lacka & Chong, 2016). The same tends to happen with other service companies that do not normally rely on this type of communication as a way to engage with their clients. Many executives of such companies mismanage or ignore the power of social networks simple because they do not recognize its importance and they seem not to know how to engage with it. The purpose of this paper is to provide a solution for a problem raised by Alento, which is a human resources and consulting company that wishes to understand how the company could improve public engagement with its official Facebook page. To accomplish the proposed objective the company’s presence on Facebook was analysed using as theoretical frameworkthe honeycomb model for social media functionality by Kietzmann et al. (2011) to find out which of the functional blocks of social media were more relevant for Alento. The company’s Facebook page engagement was assessed and guidance was then provided on how the company should expend its efforts to improve the relationship with its customers. Trying to analyse the effect of some demographic and social factors in the perception of the importance of the seven functional building blocks of Facebook engagement with fans a survey was conducted with 205 Alento’s Facebook page followers. The findings showed that the most important functional building blocks for the company’s Facebook fan page’s engagement with fans are “presence”, “identity” and “reputation”. Furthermore, factors that influence the perception of the importance of each of the seven functional building blocks for Alento’s Facebook fan page’s engagement with fans were identified. In parallel, we analysed the results of some Facebook Marketing strategies developed during a period of 5 months. After extensive analysis of the data collected, and with the organisation’s collaboration, we purposed structural changes in firm’s Facebook marketing strategies on a short to medium term basis.The most relevant contribution of the current study is the offer of some insights on the use of a simple tool such as the honeycomb model of Kietzmann et al. (2011) for the analysis of the social engagement from a firm’s perspective, regardless of their nature. To the best ofour knowledge, this is a new angle that has been neglected in previous studies, mostly focused on understanding the consumer/end-user perspective. It relies on firm’s analysis of this innovative of communicating with their clients, irrespective of their nature.