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Effectiveness of Facebook as a free marketing tool

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Univ. of Min. Intl. Mult. Res. Jour. 2016, 1(2), 21-26.

Effectiveness of Facebook as a free marketing tool

Arthelo P. Palma
Davao Central College, Davao City Philippines
Email: arthelopalma@yahoo.com

Date received: 18 April 2016

Date accepted: 3 September 2016
Date published: 16 December 2016

ABSTRACT

When Facebook started to filter out unpaid promotional material in user news paid in 2014, marketers
were hesitant as it could only mean additional expenses for paid advertising online. While Facebook
is widely studied in its effectiveness, relevant empirical evidence on how it works as a free marketing
tool after the new rules and policies were set has to be explored further. Besides, attempts to discuss
customer behavior on Facebook were varied, but the personal context of preference in line with
emotions and needs remain less explored. Thus, this study attempted to understand consumer behavior
at the personal context towards posted threads on Facebook using articles with contents on emotions
and needs. Using a negative binomial regression analysis, organic reach was found to improve the
traffic of the blog. Employing a graphical trend presentation, the revenue of the blog was shown to
have substantially improved. In addition, threads linked to human emotions were found to have
substantial number of post engagement. Insights on the revenue study associated with Facebook free
advertising were discussed.

Keywords: Organic Reach, Post Engagement, Social Networking.

INTRODUCTION

Engaging the customers directly to a marketing activity has become a rich area of exploration for
possible strategic marketing inputs of marketers, which could link to a sustainable and competitive
advantage of a product, service offering in a tough competition in the post-modern world (Long &
Wong, 2014; Nasution et al., 2014). The possibility of doing this has become a lot easier in the advent
of social networking platforms like Facebook (Cox & Park, 2014), Twitter, LinkedIn, G+1,
StumbleUpon and other social networking platforms (Su, Mariadoss & Reynolds, 2015; Atrash et al.,
2015; Fuciu & Gorski, 2013). These social networking sites are accessible that at any convenient time
and an interested user can sign up for free over the Internet. As noted, Facebook has around 1.23
billion monthly users as of 2014 (Sedghi, 2014). Obviously, marketers are seeing this as a significant
venue for their marketing activities.

In June 30, 2014, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s Chief Executive Officer, announced that Facebook’s
revenue soared to $2.91 billion (Rushe, 2014). Despite free membership, Facebook is earning through
advertising, mobile advertising, games, gift shop and other credits or digital goods from its platform
developers (Nair, 2014). Threads or posts on Facebook can be advertised for free or as sponsored with
payment.

A page on Facebook where threads or posts have to be posted can be created for free, which has
become a budding marketing venue for small and big-time entrepreneurs alike, writers, celebrities,
organizations and many other. In fact, small-business owners were a bit triggered when they can no
longer reach more fans of their Facebook page with marketing contents that are not paid advertising
(Loten, Janofsky & Albergotti, 2014). This happened when Facebook started to filter out unpaid
promotional material in user news paid in 2014.

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Univ. of Min. Intl. Mult. Res. Jour. 2016, 1(2), 21-26.

It cannot be contested that developing brand image and advertising over the social media like
Facebook changed the landscape of the prevailing marketing approach (Dehghani & Tumer, 2015). In
fact, marketers are directed towards understanding more on the social and personal details of
consumer behavior and microtargeting technique (Celebi, 2015; Lee, Hansen & Kyun, 2015; Barbu,
2014). Next, new rules and principles have to be followed by marketing on social network sites
(Maurer & Wiegmann, 2011). In addition, marketing has to be done in a more innovative way through
the social media to focus on purchasing intention (Curran, Graham & Temple, 2011; Dehghani &
Tumer, 2015). As a potential gap, these studies were found to have common ground on consumer
behavior, choice or preference and social media’s policies that require concerns for further
explorations in modern times. Thus, to add up something to the existing literature, the following
points were considered in the study.

Firstly, to count up something to the understanding of consumer behavior at the personal context
towards posted threads on Facebook, articles with contents on emotions and needs were used in the
analysis to find out if they are highly associated with post engagement or traffic of the blog. Secondly,
with the change of Facebook’s policy on ads, empirical evidence has to be added on how organic
reach from a free advertising on Facebook is effective at increasing the traffic of the blog or site. This
was preliminary linked to the number of post engagement and overview of the potential blog revenue
of the proponent (blogger) as article writer through the lens of an AdSense account on Google.

METHODS

The study used self-made articles validated by experts, with images having contents of human needs
and emotions. These articles with corresponding links from a chosen blog or site were posted on the
Facebook page. A Facebook page has “Insights” section which stores data of organic reach and post
engagement. Furthermore, AdSense account of the proponent was used since the chosen blog was
linked to it due to the presence of pay-per-click ads.

Conceptual and operation definition of the variables

Organic reach and the type of article thread are the predictor variables of post engagement.
Operationally, organic reach is defined as the number of unique Facebook users reached by the
threads of the articles that were posted for free on Facebook. Post engagement is the number of
respondents reached by the threads and who clicked on them. Technically, it is the blog’s traffic
because the moment they clicked on the threads on Facebook, they will be directed to the blog or
site’s whole content. The types of article thread are those in line with the human needs and human
emotions.

Research design
The study employed the fundamental principle of descriptive-correlational research. This design
ensures quantitative explanation of the variables and improvement of the construct validity of the
study (Mitchell & Jolley, 2013).

Sampling size and sampling procedure

Purposive sampling technique was implemented. There were 1,100 followers of the Facebook page of
the blog and they were the direct targets of the articles in line with the human needs and human
emotions. Articles from the blog that pertain to human emotions and human needs were posted
together on the Facebook page four times in a day at a six-hour interval. These threads were posted
free. Thus, they only incurred organic reach, which is a potential limitation of the study considering
that out of the 1,100 followers of the Facebook page of the blog, a limited number of them were
randomly reached by the threads. Furthermore, only the online followers had the chance to view the
threads.

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Univ. of Min. Intl. Mult. Res. Jour. 2016, 1(2), 21-26.

Measurements
Organic reach and post engagement were measured through the insights of the Facebook page of the
blog. The history of the total number of the followers reached by the thread of the posted articles and
the total number of those who clicked on them are stored in the insights of the Facebook page of the
blog. The organic reach and post engagements were monitored on a regular basis every six-hour
interval in a day for a week.

For the purpose of monitoring the potential revenue, the proponent stopped posting threads from the
blog to the Facebook page for four months prior to the data gathering. After four months, there was a
substantial 100 percent decline of the revenue, which is a baseline figure of consideration for the
monitoring of the potential revenue increase. The revenue measurements were all stated at the
proponent’s Google AdSense account as secondary data.

Statistical tools
The post engagement, which is the dependent variable, is a count variable, suggesting that poison
regression analysis and negative binomial regression analysis as among the appropriate techniques to
use in testing the level of association between the chosen dependent and independent variables of the
study. However, overdispersion was observed since there have been a large number of 0s in the
observed data, resulting to a wide discrepancy between the mean and variance, suggesting that the
negative binomial probability distribution model is appropriate for the regression analysis (Walker &
Maddan, 2013). Thus, the internal validity of the study has substantial basis, as the estimates of the
parameters may depend on the agreement between the regression analysis used and the required
assumptions (Albright, Winston & Zappe, 2011).

RESULTS

Types of articles, organic reach and post engagement

Revealed in Table 1 are the corresponding organic reach and post engagement associated with the
types of article threads of blogs that were posted on the Facebook page for promotional or advertising
purposes. With more than 400 organic reach, the resulting post engagement or new traffic or blog visit
was equivalent to 34 new unique visitors in a week. This might be relatively lower, which simply
adheres to the idea that Facebook users’ interest may potentially be on social and personal concerns
rather than on the marketers’ attempt of building brands (Sashittal, Sriramachandramurthy & Hodis,
2012; Celebi, 2015; Lee, Hansen & Kyun, 2015).

Threads linked to human emotions generated more page views than the articles in line with the human
needs even if the total organic reach of the latter was relatively higher than the former. The
observation remains grounded on the thought on the unpredictability of human emotion. Human
emotions or feelings are unpredictable and dynamic or constantly changing (Feldman, 2003; Peter and
Olson, 2007). In fact, the number of post engagement associated with the threads of articles pertaining
to human emotion (B) was more varied compared to the post engagement generated by the threads of
articles in line with the human needs (A). This preliminary observation led to finding the potential
association between the types of article thread (AT) and the actual number of post engagement (PE),
and the number of organic reach (OR) and the total post engagement (PE).

Table 1. The total organic reach and post engagement using

two different types of article threads
Total Post Engagement,
Type of Article Total Organic Mean And Variance
Thread Reach
Need (A) 407 Total = 12; Mean =
0.43; Var. = 0.77
Emotion (B) 387 Total = 22; Mean =
0.79; Var. = 5.14

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Univ. of Min. Intl. Mult.
ult. Res. Jour. 2016, 1(2), 21-26.
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Below is the actual generated estimated model after operating a negative binomial regression analysis
using statistical software.

ln (PE) = -1.85 + 0.09 OR – 0.51 AT

Considering the goodness of fit, omnibus test, and test of model effects,
effects, the generated model was
found good for prediction purposes, but the OR was the only statistically significant predictor variable
at α = .05. Parameter estimates also revealed that the intercept and coefficient of OR were significant
at α = .05. As depicted
picted in the incidence rate ratio (IRR) of OR coefficient, a significant increase in OR
will eventually result to a log link increase of 9.5 percent in the post engagement or additional unique
visitors or traffic for the blog.
The result simply suggests that paid or sponsored advertising on Facebook might be promising
enough considering that even a free advertising can possibly increase the blog’s potential traffic over
time. Thus, Facebook is indeed remarkably earning from advertising or sponsored online threads
(Nair, 2014).

Organic reach and blogger’s revenue

To illustrate further as to how the OR can potentially increase the revenue of the blog, Figure 1 below
reveals the Google Adsense actual income percentage of the proponent before and after the study.

The proponent chose not to post anything on the Facebook page with threads coming from the blog
starting July. The graph depicts a downward spiral trend of revenue, not until November, by which in
its first week the study was implemented. The site was still gaining even if there was no promotion
considering that its page rank on Google search engine is currently at level two. The increase in
November’s revenue percentage could be attributed to this scenario, but the noted 34 new unique
visitors in the first week of the said month must have had shared the threads after their engagement.
That actual activity could led to an exponential growth of the total traffic of the blog. Thus, further
experiment is viewed necessary to further justify this observation,
observation, considering that time constraint
(length of time of the experiment) is another remarkable limitation of the study.

Figure 1. Percentage of the blog’s revenue growth before and after the study.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Going back to the results of the study, I see that even a free advertising on Facebook has a potential
capacity for increasing revenue. Organic reach is still proven to work after the traffic of the blog was
remarkable and blogger’s revenue substantially improved.
improved. This supports the view that Facebook is
indeed an excellent marketing tools for businesses (Curran, Graham & Temple, 2011). In addition,

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Univ. of Min. Intl. Mult. Res. Jour. 2016, 1(2), 21-26.

cost wise, Dehghani and Tumer (2015) argued that Facebook is a less expensive solution as
promotional marketing tool.

However, the success of Facebook as a marketing tool may depend on the aggressiveness of the
promotion and the amount of understanding of the human emotion or consumer behavior, as this
study simply wants to suggest. This provides a venue to support the previous study that Facebook
users’ main concern might not be directly in line with marketer’s intention of building brands or
enticing customers (Sashittal, Sriramachandramurthy & Hodis, 2012; Celebi, 2015; Lee, Hansen &
Kyun, 2015). Thus, this also exemplifies the emphasized benefits of investigating further the reasons
for high expectations upon the use of Facebook as a marketing tool that has potential advantages
(Waters, Canfield, Foster & Hardy, 2011). As implied, this study found a relevant behavioral gap
among online Facebook users, marketers, and Facebook policies that I see as important point of
interest. This requires further relevant investigation of insightful evidences in the future that could be
linked to revenue studies. One should learn to consider that the use of Facebook free advertising is an
essential step not only for increasing revenue, but minimizing cost that could lead to an opportunity of
optimizing future entrepreneurial profit.

RECOMMENDATION

Considering the length of time given for this study, further revenue studies associated with free
Facebook advertising is recommended in the future. In addition, only few literature discussing
revenue studies on Facebook is available for now. These future studies should promote the idea that
Facebook is not only for personal or social consumption, but eventually for understanding the socio-
economic perspective of the modern marketing communication technology.

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