Social media engagement optimized

: a deep analysis of Facebook posts by beer brands

Abstract

Social Networking Sites, like Facebook, are excellent platforms to leverage consumer-brand relationships. Brands can connect with people by creating a fan page and publishing content that captures their attention. Fans respond by liking, commenting and sharing it. In 2014, 200.243 million liters of beer were sold. Given the global popularity of beer and given that its potential customers, generation Y, are heavy users of Facebook, it is crucial for practitioners to understand how to engage Facebook users. This study investigates what type of post optimizes online engagement in beer brands Facebook fan page. Which beer brand has higher levels of engagement? Is it for its post’s content? Is it for its architecture? Is it for the communication style? Or is it because they talk to a national audience instead of talking to the world? To answer these questions, we measured engagement by counting the number of Likes, Comments and Shares that six global beer brands received in each post of their Facebook fan page, from 01.07.2014 to 31.12.2014. Based on these scores, we used SPSS’ exploratory factor analysis to generate the variable Engagement. We, then, analyzed the respective 988 Facebook posts in terms of their Content, Architecture and Communication goals. Finally, an empirical analysis using linear regression was conducted on the posts. This model empirically contributes to the existing literature on social media marketing, but more importantly, it helps beer community managers in the hope to conquer the so called “generation.com”.

Date of Award	27 Oct 2015
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Marcelo Nepomuceno (Supervisor)