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Optimal Way of Using Facebook Marketing
Optimal Way of Using Facebook Marketing
www.emeraldinsight.com/1477-996X.htm
JICES
11,2 Optimal ways for companies
to use Facebook as a
marketing channel
112
Linnea Hansson and Anton Wrangmo
Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden, and
Received 30 December 2012
Revised 23 February 2013 Klaus Solberg Søilen
24 March 2013
Accepted 15 April 2013
School of Business and Engineering, Halmstad University, Halmstad, Sweden
Abstract
Purpose – 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.
Design/methodology/approach – 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.
Findings – 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.
Research limitations/implications – 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.
Practical implications – The results give companies a clear idea of how to effectively use Facebook
in their marketing efforts.
Originality/value – 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.
Keywords Business ethics, e-Business, Internet ethics, Networking, Marketing, Facebook, Social media,
Social networking, Internet, Ethics, Sweden
Paper type Research paper
Journal of Information,
Communication and Ethics in Society 1. Introduction
Vol. 11 No. 2, 2013
pp. 112-126 Mark Zuckerberg started the social network Facebook at Harvard University in 2004.
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited Its original purpose was to help students at the university to better communicate with
1477-996X
DOI 10.1108/JICES-12-2012-0024 each other (Krivak, 2008, p. 1). Today, Facebook is the world’s most successful social
networking company. Facebook receives its income from companies that want Facebook
to access members through marketing and advertising activities on the web site as a marketing
(Lilley et al., 2012, p. 83). Marketing via Facebook is a well-functioning concept.
Through this channel, it is possible for companies of all sizes to achieve marketing and channel
branding goals at a relatively low cost. There are a number of different marketing
options to choose from on Facebook, and no previous studies have been conducted that
have concretely evaluated each of these options. The main goal of this paper is to 113
identify the options that provide the best marketing results for companies. We begin
with consumers’ preferences and then answer each of the following research questions:
RQ1. What functions do consumers think are the most important?
RQ2. How do consumers think that the optimal company profile should look like?
RQ3. How does a company optimize its use of Facebook as a marketing channel?
1.1 Facebook
On Facebook, users create an account with a public or semi-public profile; they then have
the option of showing the identities of their friends, and sharing photos and activity
feeds (Palmer and Koenig-Lewis, 2009, p. 165). In this way, users can publish their own
information, share with it others, and receive information about other peoples’ lives. This
leads to a form of collaboration which creates new content (Coulter and Roggeveen, 2012,
p. 79). The users are usually not on Facebook to make new contacts, but rather to share
and keep in touch with friends and family. Most of the communication is between users
who also know each other offline. To quote the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg,
in a statement that is found on the Facebook homepage and is ubiquitous throughout the
internet, “Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life[1]”.
A study shows that Facebook is attractive to users because it builds on:
.
curiosity, we look at photos of friends and other people’s profiles;
.
enjoyment, we are able to communicate with others; and
.
excitement, we can send gifts and play games with others (Palmer and
Koenig-Lewis, 2009, p. 171).
The average Facebook user is active for 32 min a day, and most log on to the site at least
once every day (Park and Cho, 2012, p. 403). A previous study from 2009 shows that more
than half of Facebook users have clicked on a company’s Facebook page, and that
16 percent of them had sent a message to a company (Palmer and Koenig-Lewis, 2009,
p. 168).
Facebook is a consumer-oriented network. The social media web site, LinkedIn, is an
example of a more business-oriented network (Palmer and Koenig-Lewis, 2009, p. 165).
Because Facebook is consumer-oriented, this affects the way that users perceive Facebook
and the ethical standards that they demand from the service. Most members see Facebook
as a free-service network; however, as Lilley et al. (2012, p. 83) points out, they are still
affected by advertising from companies. For example, banners and ads on Facebook
encourage users to click on them, and spend money to buy the companies’ products.
Lutze (2010, p. 48) notes that there are two major ways to use Facebook, i.e. to fulfill
private and job-related needs. Achieving and maintaining a satisfactory balance
between these two needs can be difficult on Facebook. In fact, it can become a serious
JICES burden for users, making it virtually impossible for them to separate private from
11,2 job-related messages and contacts. According to Lutze (2010, p. 46), one solution to this
problem is to have two different accounts with different purposes, one for private
contacts and one for business contacts. This solution is not feasible, however, because
business contacts may not respect this distinction and contact a user on his or her
private profile. Although most users have a Facebook account primarily to keep in
114 touch with their friends and family, they are well aware that Facebook is also used as a
marketing channel for companies. Companies are able to spread their messages, make
contact with customers, and build relationships on Facebook. Since Facebook has more
than one billion active users, companies can no longer afford to ignore the service as a
major marketing channel (M.G., 2012, p. 1). This again raises a number of ethical and
social responsibility questions that companies cannot afford to ignore if they want to
succeed on Facebook over the long term.
Gender Female 51 80
Male 49 78
Age 15-24 56 88
25-34 37 58 Table I.
35-44 1 2 Demographics of
45þ 6 10 respondents
Visiting Facebook
Several times a day 82 130
Once a day 9 14
Several times a week 8 12
Several times a month 1 2
Purpose of use
100% privacy 67 106
80/20 privacy/work 23 36
50/50 privacy/work 9 14
20/80 privacy/work 1 2
100% work 0 0
Attitude to marketing on Facebook
Positive 34 54
Negative 14 22 Table II.
No opinion 52 82 Facebook activity
JICES 3. Results
11,2 The results from the empirical data show which functions that our respondents think
are most important. We also receive a clear picture of which companies appear most
often on Facebook.
Company profile 32 32 19 6 11
Movie clips 19 32 30 11 8
Pictures 38 34 18 4 6
Message 26 25 28 8 13
Contest 8 9 15 30 38
Ads 9 6 26 25 34
Friends 6 4 21 21 49
Geographical 13 19 23 15 30
Status updates 45 34 13 4 4
Like 21 32 30 11 6
Check-in 11 19 21 26 23
Event 25 26 32 15 2
Link 25 23 38 8 8
Talking about 8 19 28 21 25
Spread/share 15 34 26 11 13
Table III. Ambassadors 9 21 26 21 23
Functions of marketing Associations 11 26 34 21 8
Many also felt that the prizes are not sufficiently attractive. Because of this, the contest Facebook
was perceived as being more of a sales gimmick or trick. When it comes to the function as a marketing
“spread information,” meaning that activities on Facebook are spread to other news
feeds, the respondents’ answers varied widely. 15 percent thought that it was absolutely channel
critical, 34 percent thought that it was very important, 26 percent thought that it was
important, 11 percent thought that it was somewhat significant, and 13 percent thought
that it was insignificant. 121
Companies putting pictures on their Facebook pages were something that the
respondents thought to be very important: 72 percent thought that it was very
important or absolutely critical. Being able to send messages to companies was also
ranked highly: 79 percent ranked it from important to absolutely critical.
5. Conclusions
The research questions for this study are answered based on the answers from the
survey and previous theory.
RQ1. What functions do consumers think are the most important? Consumers
consider status updates, pictures/photos/images, and how companies’ profiles are
designed to be the most important functions.
RQ2. How do consumers think that the optimal company profile should look like?
Consumers consider the optimal company profile to be an active profile. Each activity
should have a clear purpose and be useful to members. The company should be
committed to sending out new and timely information, and must not be seen as
bombarding the consumer with spam. Contests should have rewards that are perceived
as being valuable.
RQ3. How does a company optimize its use of Facebook as a marketing channel?
The company is best advised to create a company profile where the design is in line with
the company’s overall profile, in the form of pictures and statements (consistent Facebook
with overall marketing communication). The site has to be an active profile, where the as a marketing
company is seen as being involved and providing up-to-date information about
technological developments; for example, new functions and applications. As an example, channel
the company could use Instagram, a free photo-sharing program and social network, and
Facebook together to broaden its involvement in social media. Photos and statuses
are important to provide information and create inspiration for consumers. Each update 125
should have a clear purpose that will not be lost among other updates. If consumers
write negative comments about a company on its page, the company should show that
they take the consumer seriously. In short, companies can optimize their use of Facebook in
marketing through consistent, clear messages, where each activity is well thought out and
shows a serious and clear purpose, as well as a respect for users.
Notes
1. The quote is from Facebook.com (accessed December 21, 2012).
2. Demographic on Facebook users for Sweden are gathered from www.socialbakers.com/
facebook-statistics/sweden (accessed December 21, 2012).
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Further reading
Kaplan, A.M. and Haenlein, M. (2010), “Users of the world, unite? The challenges and
opportunities of social media”, Business Horizon, Vol. 5 No. 5, pp. 9-68.
Corresponding author
Klaus Solberg Søilen can be contacted at: klasol@hh.se