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Why do consumers use Facebook brand pages? A case study of a leading fast-
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Why do consumers use Facebook brand pages? A

case study of a leading fast-food brand fan page in
Egypt

Hazem Rasheed Gaber, Ahmed Mousa Elsamadicy & Len Tiu Wright

To cite this article: Hazem Rasheed Gaber, Ahmed Mousa Elsamadicy & Len Tiu Wright
(2019) Why do consumers use Facebook brand pages? A case study of a leading fast-food
brand fan page in Egypt, Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, 29:3, 293-310, DOI:
10.1080/21639159.2019.1622434

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JOURNAL OF GLOBAL SCHOLARS OF MARKETING SCIENCE
2019, VOL. 29, NO. 3, 293–310
https://doi.org/10.1080/21639159.2019.1622434

Why do consumers use Facebook brand pages? A case study

of a leading fast-food brand fan page in Egypt
Hazem Rasheed Gabera, Ahmed Mousa Elsamadicya and Len Tiu Wrightb
a
College of Management and Technology, Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport,
Alexandria, Egypt; bLeicester Business School, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This paper identifies the reasons that make consumers actively Received 6 December 2017
engage on Facebook brand pages. By adopting the Uses and Revised 12 June 2018
Gratification Theory, this article presents a number of uses for these Accepted 17 December 2018
online brand communities. A qualitative study was conducted to KEYWORDS
collect data from the Facebook page of a leading fast-food brand in Social media marketing;
Egypt. A content analysis for the comments that were posted by Facebook; uses and
consumers on the brand page over the period of three months was gratifications theory; fast
conducted. The findings showed that consumers actively contribute food; consumer engagement
to the content of the brand page for eight reasons which are: search
关键词
for information, complaining, socializing, obtaining incentives, enter- 社交媒体营销; 脸书; “使用
tainment seeking, expression of emotions, brand advocacy and 与满足”理论; 快餐; 消费者
enhancing social image. Prior research has focused on consumer 参与
participation in offline brand communities. Given the rapid adoption
of social media based brand communities in marketing, this article
expands the research focus to the social media domains, which have
largely replaced traditional marketing methods. The article provides
some useful guidelines for companies to follow when adopting
marketing on Facebook brand pages. By understanding why consu-
mers use these pages, companies can execute more effective social
media marketing strategies that allow them to fully grasp the poten-
tials of these new media.

消费者为何使用脸书品牌页面？ 埃及领先快餐品牌
粉丝页面的案例研究
摘要
目的: 社交媒体使用人数持续增长, 且没有停止迹象, 社交网络不断
吸引着数十亿用户° 在众多受营销人员关注的社交网络中, 最突出
的是脸书° 本文的目的在于确认消费者积极参与脸书品牌页面的原
因° 通过采用“使用与满足”理论, 本文介绍了这些在线品牌社区的一
些用途°
方法: 我们进行了一项定性研究, 以收集一个埃及领先快餐品牌在
脸书页面的数据° 选择快餐业的原因在于, 它是将脸书广泛用于市
场营销的主要行业之一° 许多快餐连锁企业发现, 针对年轻消费
者, 脸书可以作为一种有效的广告媒介, 因为年轻消费者通常对由
传统大众媒体传播的广告具有强烈的抵触心理° 我们对消费者在

CORRESPONDENCE TO Hazem Rasheed Gaber Hazem.rasheed@aast.edu Arab Academy for Science,

Technology and Maritime Transport, Alexandria, Egypt.
© 2019 Korean Scholars of Marketing Science
294 H. RASHEED GABER ET AL.

三个月内在品牌页面上发布的评论也进行了内容分析° 内容分析
已成为被最广泛使用的数据收集方法之一, 用于捕捉消费者在网
络环境中的感知°
调查结果: 调查结果显示, 消费者积极为品牌页面提供内容是出于
以下八个原因: 信息查找、抱怨、社交、获奖、娱乐、情感表
达、品牌宣传以及提升社会形象°
创意/价值: 先前的研究主要将视线集中在消费者对线下品牌社区
的参与° 鉴于以社交媒体为基础的品牌社区在营销中的迅速普及,
本文将研究重点扩展到社交媒体领域° 社交媒体在很大程度上已
经取代了传统的营销方法° 此外, 它突出了社交媒体通过嵌入其
平台的品牌社区与客户沟通的重要作用° 最后, 本文将“使用与满
足”理论的关注点扩展到基于社交媒体的品牌社区中° 先前有文献
曾用这一理论来说明人们使用多种通信媒体, 如电视、广播和互
联网的原因°
启示: 本文为企业在采用脸书品牌页面营销时可遵循的指导方针°
通过了解消费者使用这些页面的原因, 企业可以实行更有效的社交
媒体营销策略, 这些策略能使他们充分掌握这些新媒体的潜力° 具
体而言, 研究结果表明, 基于社交媒体的品牌社区可用于管理客户
关系、提升品牌知名度、应用促销活动、用品牌吸引顾客、拉近
与新受众的关系、提升品牌的口碑以及支持其他线下和线上的营
销活动°
未来研究的局限和方向: 本研究仅基于脸书的品牌页面进行, 它是
最受欢迎的嵌入社交网络的在线品牌社区形式° 但是, 目前的研究
还远不能了解其他社交网站上的消费者参与因素, 若要打破这个
局限, 我们还需进行更深入的研究° 此外, 我们的研究范围偏小,
仅限于一个行业的消费者, 即埃及快餐业的消费者° 因此, 建议将
该研究延伸到其他行业, 这是因为在在线品牌社区中, 有助于建立
品牌至爱和整体品牌资产的因素可能因行业而异°

Introduction
The continuous growth in social media usage shows no signs of stopping, where social
networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn & Instagram have attracted hundreds of
millions of users (Tuten & Solomon, 2015). These social networks are considered
“online communities that allow people to socialise and interact with each other”
(Dennis, Morgan, Wright, & Jayawardhena, 2010, p. 153). With their high popularity,
more and more people are relying on these networks as a main hub for communication
and social interaction (Dahl, 2015; Whiting & Williams, 2013).
The development of social media has not only facilitated the connection between
people but also between organisations and consumers (Carvill & Taylor, 2013). Driven
by the high penetration of social media among consumers, many organizations have
started to shift their marketing budgets from traditional mass media to these new media
(Keegan & Rowley, 2017; Social Media Examiner, 2016). It was found that firms that use
social media in an effective way for customer relationship management can achieve
a superior financial performance (Wang & Kim, 2017).
With its interactive and viral nature, social media was able to change the traditional
one-way marketing communication into two-way communication between companies
and consumers (Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2016; Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014), since it
encourages active engagement of consumers and helps in brand community building
(Hutter, Hautz, Dennhardt, & Füller, 2013).
 JOURNAL OF GLOBAL SCHOLARS OF MARKETING SCIENCE 295

Chief among the social networks that are gaining marketers’ attention is the social
networking site Facebook with its 2 billion monthly active users (Abram & Karasavas,
2018). Facebook brand pages are considered one of the most popular forms of social media
marketing that facilitated communication between organisations and its customers (Luarn,
Lin, & Chiu, 2015). These pages are online brand communities that gather consumers who
are interested in a certain brand in one platform, in which consumers are able to interact
with each other and with the company (Khobzi & Teimourpour, 2015). These pages can be
either initiated by companies or by consumers who wish to show their enthusiasm to
a certain brand (Zaglia, 2013). By joining a brand page and becoming a part of its
community, consumers can view and contribute to its content (De Vries & Carlson, 2014).
Despite the importance of social media communication in building long-term
relationships with consumers (Chow & Shi, 2015; Dessart, Veloutsou, & Morgan-
Thomas, 2015), there is still a lack in understanding how companies can utilise it
effectively (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014). More importantly, the continuous growth of
Facebook brand pages has caught the eyes of brand managers who wish to capitalise on
it for marketing purposes (Harris & Dennis, 2011; Khobzi & Teimourpour, 2015;
Tafesse, 2015). However, despite this interest, academic research lags behind industry
practice (Hutter et al., 2013). Specifically, little academic attention has been given to
investigate consumer’ relationships with these online communities. Most of the rela-
tively limited academic studies consider brand pages as a new marketing tool (Jahn &
Kunz, 2012; Kang, Tang, & Fiore, 2014) that improve the effectiveness of marketing
communication (Hutter et al., 2013; Islam & Rahman, 2016), and very little research try
to understand how companies could benefit from consumers’ engagement inside these
communities (Kang, Tang, & Fiore, 2015).
Prior research has identified a number of consumer motivations for engaging with
brands on social media. Consumers’ motivations, however, are likely to differ across
cultures (Kim, Sohn, & Choi, 2011). To the best of our knowledge, there is limited
research that examines consumers’ motivations to interact and engage in social media
based brand communities in Egypt. Considering this gap in the literature, the current
study has a main purpose: to bring empirical insights on why consumers interact or use
brand pages in social networking sites (also called fan pages on Facebook) in Egypt. By
identifying why consumers use these online communities, the article provides compa-
nies with some guidelines that allow them to fully grasp the potential of using social
media. According to recent industry surveys, one of the main things that marketers are
interested to know is how to engage consumers on social media (Social Media
Examiner, 2016). Accordingly, by understanding the motivations that make consumers
join brand pages of Facebook, this research study will help marketers better execute
effective posting strategies on social media.
The paper is organized as follows. First, an overview of the concept of the brand
community is introduced. This is followed by a discussion on the Uses and Gratification
Theory (UGT). Second, the methodology that was adopted is presented, followed by
a presentation of the findings. Finally, a discussion of the theoretical and managerial
implications will be provided together with the research limitations and directions for
future research.
296 H. RASHEED GABER ET AL.

Literature review
The concept of a brand community
The study of communities started in the field of sociology, where it was an important
concern for many social theorists and philosophers in the past two centuries (Wellman,
1979). This importance has arisen when many sociologists considered that modernity is
challenging traditional societies and even destroying it (Muniz & O’guinn, 2001). Since
people by nature have a continuous need to form and maintain interpersonal relation-
ships, it is expected that these interpersonal relationships can be formed based on their
consumption habits leading to the establishment of brand communities (Stokburger-
Sauer, 2010).
Brand communities can be defined as “specialized, non-geographically bound com-
munity, based on a structured set of social relationships among admirers of a brand”
(Muniz & O’guinn, 2001, p. 441). These communities have become an important means
of value creation for many organisations (Schau, Muñiz, & Arnould, 2009). One of the
famous brand communities that is well cited in literature is the Harley-Davidson
Owners Group (Algesheimer et al., 2005; Bhattacharya, Rao, & Glynn, 1995; Schouten
& McAlexander, 1995). This community is initiated by the company to include the
owners of motorcycles, where customers are added to the community after they
purchase the motorcycles (Algesheimer et al., 2005). Harley-Davidson established its
competitive strategy around its brand community since all of the events are organized
by its employees and riders. Hence, many employees become motorcycle riders and
many motorcycle riders become employees after joining the community (Fournier &
Lee, 2009).
The marketing literature presents various reasons that make consumers participate
in these brand communities; for instance, Algesheimer et al., (2005) indicated that
brand communities represent an ideal place that enables consumers to take the
opinion of others regarding the quality and performance of brands. Another reason
is to share their consumption experiences with others since these communities are
useful in products that need synergistic or joint consumption, such as sport teams
communities (McAlexander, Schouten, & Koenig, 2002). Additionally, it was found
that these communities gather consumers who have strong brand identity and who
wish to be associated with the brand (de Chernatony et al., 2008). Likewise,
Nambisan and Baron (2007) argued that these communities help its members in
gaining four types of benefits which are: learning, social, personal and hedonic
benefits.
Muniz and O’guinn (2001) were able to identify three characteristics that distinguish
the members of a brand community. Firstly, the “consciousness of kind” which is the
feeling of connection that brand community members feel towards each other and the
perceived difference they have towards non-members. The second important character-
istic of members is their shared rituals and traditions. Finally, members posses a sense
of moral responsibility towards each other which appears, for example, when old
members help new members by giving them some advice regarding the brand con-
sumption or when they integrate new members into the brand community. They can
answer their questions and provide any type of support by educating them about the
usage of the products or services (Zaglia, 2013).
 JOURNAL OF GLOBAL SCHOLARS OF MARKETING SCIENCE 297

With the introduction of Web 2.0, traditional offline brand communities have been
developed to become online brand communities (Adebanjo & Michaelides, 2010).
Additionally, the development of social networks has allowed people to form virtual
communities, giving less attention to geographic boundaries, which were one of the
main characteristics of traditional communities (Zaglia, 2013). Authors have been using
the term “online brand communities” synonymously with “virtual brand communities”
in marketing literature. According to De Valck et al. (2009, p. 185), a virtual community
can be defined as “a specialized, non-geographically bound, online community based on
social communications and relationships among a brand’s consumers.” The main feature
of an online brand community is the ability of its members to interact with each other
(Martínez-López, Anaya-Sánchez, Aguilar-Illescas, & Molinillo, 2016). Similarly, like
traditional communities, consumer join such communities because they are interested
in a specific brand and want to exchange information or knowledge or simply express
their passion with the brand (Hutter et al., 2013). Since these communities represent an
additional channel for communication between companies and consumers (Sung, Kim,
Kwon, & Moon, 2010), they enable prospective customers to benefit from the experi-
ences of current customers, which can facilitate the development of brand loyalty and
commitment (Dessart et al., 2015). Table 1 provides a summary for the reasons of
consumer participation in online brand communities.
Many companies consider Facebook as the most attractive social media platform for
marketing purposes, in particular for business to consumer communication (Cvijikj &
Michahelles, 2013; Khobzi & Teimourpour, 2015). In Facebook, users can become
a “fan” of a certain brand by pressing the “like-button” (Jahn & Kunz, 2012). By
becoming a fan of a certain brand on Facebook, consumers can see branded content
when they log-into the brand page (Su, Reynolds, & Sun, 2015). Thus, the content of
the brand page is automatically posted to their social network profiles (Jahn & Kunz,
2012). It was found that consumers’ belonging to Facebook brand pages might result in
consumer satisfaction, affective commitment and positive word of mouth for the brand
(Royo-Vela & Casamassima, 2011).

Table 1. Summary of the findings of previous research related to reasons of consumer participation
in online brand communities.
Source Reasons for consumer participation
Dessart et al. (2015) Brand identification, brand satisfaction, brand trust, online brand community
identification, and community value (Information, entertainment, networking and
monetary incentives).
Tsai & Men (2013) Perceived credibility and relationship-oriented factors.
Whiting and Williams (2013) Social interaction, information seeking, passing the time, entertainment, relaxation,
communicatory utility, convenience utility, expression of opinion, information
sharing, and surveillance/knowledge about others.
Lee and Hong (2016) Entertainment, socialising, seeking for information and status.
Baldus, Voorhees, and Brand influence, brand passion, connecting, helping, like-minded discussion, rewards
Calantone (2015) (hedonic), rewards (utilitarian), seeking assistance, self-expression, up-to-date
information, validation.
Enginkaya and Yılmaz (2014) Brand affiliation, opportunity seeking, conversation, entertainment and investigation.
Ben-Shaul and Reichel Functional, social-psychological, hedonistic, and incentive motives
(2018)
Tsimonis and Dimitriadis Competitions, communication with other users, questions, feedback, complaints, or
(2014) thanks to the company.
298 H. RASHEED GABER ET AL.

Uses and gratification theory

The uses and gratification (U & G) theory has its roots in the needs and motivation theory
(Son, 2015). The latter argues that people aim to satisfy their hierarchy of needs through
directed behaviour (Maslow, Frager, Fadiman, McReynolds, & Cox, 1970). In the mass
communication field, Katz and Blumler (1974) developed the principles of Maslow
Hierarchy to explain peoples’ usage for media to gratify their needs. Thus, the uses and
gratification approach is widely used in empirical mass communication research to explain
peoples’ motives for adopting different media to satisfy their needs (Katz, 1959).
The term “uses and gratifications” refers to the uses that people have for adopting
media and the gratifications they are able to get from this media usage (Quinn, 2016).
Thus, it explains the proposition of individuals’ choice and usage for different media to
satisfy their needs (Ferguson & Perse, 2000). Hence, it is considered one of the most
influential theories that explain peoples’ interaction with various media (Roy, 2009).
This theory has been used to explain peoples’ use for various media including television
(Bantz, 1982), cinema (Weaver, Brosius, & Mundorf, 1993), mobile phones (Quan-Haase &
Young, 2010) newspaper (Leung & Wei, 1998), internet (Flanagin & Metzger, 2001; LaRose
& Eastin, 2004), e-books (Shin, 2011) and online games (Wu, Wang, & Tsai, 2010).
In the context of social media research, several studies used the uses and gratification
theory to explain why people adopt various social media platforms. For instance, Lee
and Hong (2016) indicated that students join social networks for different reasons
which are: entertainment, socialising, information seeking and status seeking. Another
study by Whiting and Williams (2013) identified 10 uses and gratifications which are:
social interaction, information seeking, pass time, entertainment, relaxation, commu-
nicatory utility, convenience utility, expression of opinion, information sharing, and
surveillance/knowledge about others.
In the current study, the researcher is using the uses and gratification theory to
explain why consumers adopt the social media based brand communities. Literature on
online brand communities has focused mainly on traditional online forums in the
internet, e.g. (Cova & Pace, 2006; Sicilia & Palazón, 2008), but there is limited
researches that focused on these communities in the social media context. Given the
rapid adoption of the social media based brand communities for marketing purposes,
understanding why consumers use these online communities will add to the growing
body of social media marketing literature.

Facebook as a marketing strategy for the fast food industry in Egypt

Competition in the fast food industry worldwide, including Egypt, is very severe, where
consumer switching costs are relatively very low. Thus, in order to maintain and attract
new customers, the application of effective marketing and customer relationship man-
agement programs is crucial for the success of the fast food businesses (Ali et al., 2010).
This requires the search for innovative ways for reaching and interacting with their
target market. The fact that the majority of social media users are young people and the
fact that the fast-food chains mainly target that age group have made the social
networking sites like Facebook a suitable place for marketing for these chains
(Wright, Gaber, Robin, & Cai, 2017).
 JOURNAL OF GLOBAL SCHOLARS OF MARKETING SCIENCE 299

Along with other countries, Egypt faced a dramatic increase in social media pene-
tration. Chief among other networks, Egypt has 32 million Facebook users and is
ranked 13th among countries that use Facebook; this makes Egypt the largest Arab
country in user count, where it has almost 30% of Arab total users (Internet World
Stats, 2016). According to a report published by eMarketing Egypt, 97% of Facebook
users in Egypt access it on daily basis, with 26% staying active on this website between
two and six hours daily (eMarketing, 2016).
Fast food chains in Egypt found that the social networking site, Facebook, with its
millions of daily active users, can be an effective medium for targeting young consumers
who have been strongly resistant to advertising in traditional mass media, e.g. (television,
radio and print, etc.). Hence, most fast food companies in Egypt established brand pages
on Facebook to communicate with its current and prospective customers. These compa-
nies post a variety of branded content on their pages where members of these pages can
interact with that content as well as with each other (Saad & Badran, 2017). The content
can include information about the meals and sandwiches. Also, the managers of the page
can answer any questions that are posted by the customers (Gaber & Wright, 2014).

Research methods
Content analysis
In the current study, the researchers chose to use a case study approach (Yin, 2013)
which is useful in investigating complex and contemporary social phenomena. The
researchers adopted qualitative content analysis as a data collection method, which is
a systematic approach to make valid inferences from raw data. This method has
emerged in communications research where it was useful in identifying how mes-
sages or information are conveyed by specific communicators (Lombard, Snyder
Duch, & Bracken, 2002). Qualitative content analysis is particularly useful in con-
densing a large volume of data into conceptually meaningful categories (Hsieh &
Shannon, 2005). Content analysis has been recently in some academic publications to
describe consumer behaviour in online brand communities, e.g. (Bellström et al.,
2016; Su et al., 2015).

Research setting, data collection and coding

A leading fast food official Facebook brand page in Egypt (McDonald’s Egypt) was
chosen to conduct the content analysis. Several reasons guided the researcher when
choosing the fast food industry. The first reason is that the fast food industry is
considered one of the several industries in Egypt that use Facebook for marketing
purposes on a wide scale. These chains found that the social networking site, Facebook,
with its millions of daily active users, can be an effective medium for targeting young
consumers who have been strongly resistant to advertising in traditional mass media,
e.g. (television, radio and print, etc.).
A review of the biggest 20 Facebook brand pages in terms of the number of members
in Egypt showed that eight brand pages were initiated and are being managed by fast
food chains. This makes the brand pages of the fast food industry one of the most
300 H. RASHEED GABER ET AL.

suitable online environments for investigating consumer engagement, which is the

main purpose of this research. See Table 2 that demonstrates the number of fans of
some fast food brand pages on Facebook in Egypt.
This fast food chain uses its brand page to promote for its meals and sandwiches.
Every week, the moderators of the page post a variety of content seeking consumers’
interaction. The posts ranged from simple pictures to interactive posts that seek
consumers’ engagement. Two coders initially coded and categorized all contributions
that are posted by consumers on the brand page. These coders were Egyptian marketing
scholars who are familiar with the principles of social media marketing. Reliability of
content analysis can be examined using two or more coders and determining the coding
agreement. In content analysis, the inter-coder agreement ratio is often used as
a measure of the extent to which independent judges make the same coding decisions
in evaluating the characteristics of messages (Lombard et al., 2002). To assess the
reliability of the content analysis of the coding process, the following formula was
used. R = A/T
R =Agreement Ratio.
A =the total number of agreed units by two coders.
T = the total number of coded units.
Overall reliability of the independent variables was 89.2%, which is above the
acceptable range of 80% (Lombard et al., 2002).
After successive readings, and discussions between the two coders, the researchers
decided to modify some interpretations and codes. Over the period of three months, the
researchers observed consumers’ interactions and comments to the posts on the brand
page. For the purpose of data collection in the current study, a total of 345 brand posts
were purposively used as a sample for the content analysis. These posts were posted by
consumers on the page timeline between the beginnings of June 2016 until the end of
August 2016.

Table 2. Some Egyptian fast food brand pages on

Facebook and their number of fans.
Fast food brand page on Facebook Number of Fans
McDonald’s Egypt 3,551,066
Om Hassan Egypt 2,218,012
Pizza Hut 1,317,433
Hardee’s Arabia 1,282,834
Cook Door 1,164,588
Domino’s Pizza 925,868
Chili’s Egypt 835,319
Chicken Tikka Egypt 777,078
Basmatio Chicken 686,117
Buffalo Burger 633,513
Burger King Arabia 586,215
Mo’men Egypt 322,818
Papa John’s Egypt 274,716
Vinny’s Pizzeria 225,520
Yank’s Corner 125,458
Source: Official brand pages of these chains on Facebook. Access
Date: August (2016).
 JOURNAL OF GLOBAL SCHOLARS OF MARKETING SCIENCE 301

The coding and analysis were conducted with the aid of NVivo v.11 qualitative
analysis software (Bazeley & Jackson, 2013). The aim of the analysis was to identify
concepts or categories that are related to consumers’ motives to interact in the fast food
page (Yin, 2013). In the analysis, the qualitative interpretative content analysis approach
was used to group data into manageable categories or themes (Krippendorff, 2013).
Table 3 shows the themes that were identified from the content analysis as well as the
number and percentage of these themes.
The eight themes are discussed in the following section.

Findings and discussion

The researchers analysed the comments that were posted by consumers on the brand
page with the aim of identifying different uses and gratifications consumers have for
that page. The themes are presented in the following paragraphs:

(1) Complaining. The act of complaining was evident in the posts that consumers
wrote on the brand page. Consumers found that the brand page can be con-
sidered a suitable place to communicate their disappointment with the company.
Consumers’ complaints ranged from simply reporting some issues about poor
product or service quality. Complaining to the company on the brand page is
one of the behaviours that was facilitated by the interactive nature of social
media where companies can handle complaints through these online commu-
nities. Customers’ complaints are apparent in the following examples:
One of the posts that the company wrote on the page said: “The best service
and delivery”. In response to that claim, a consumer reported his concern about
this advertisement by writing the following words: “Your service is becoming very
poor, last time I tried to call your delivery number and your response was that you
don’t do delivery to my area. However, you have a branch several miles away, this
is very disappointing to me”. Another consumer reported his concerns by the
following words: “Despite the very good taste of your sandwiches, your prices are
becoming extremely high and your sandwiches are becoming smaller”. A third
female consumer indicated her upset from a certain branch by stating the
following “Today I had a terrible experience in your branch, I am not used to
this service in your branches. The sandwiches were very cold. I am not used to this
bad experience from your brand”.

Table 3. Themes that appeared in the posts and their numbers

and percentages.
Theme Number of Posts Percentage
Complaining 53 15.3%
Information seeking 75 21.73%
Incentives seeking 29 8.40%
Socializing 44 12.75%
Expression of emotions 32 9.27%
Brand advocacy 21 6.08%
Entertainment 56 16.23%
Enhancing social image 35 10.14%
Total 345 100%
302 H. RASHEED GABER ET AL.

(2) Information seeking. Another theme that appeared in the posts is the informa-
tion seeking motive. Consumers showed their enthusiasm about the brand and
its offers. Their comments contained questions about a variety of issues related to
the brand such as location of branches, prices, names of sandwiches and meals as
well as many other questions. Here are some examples of the information
seeking motive: A male respondent asked a question in response to a picture
that was posted in the brand page. His words were as follows: “Is this a meal or
a sandwich?”. Another consumer asked about the components of a certain
sandwich by the following words “What is the calorie intake of this sandwich
and how do you make it?
(3) Incentives Seeking. Obtaining promotions and incentives that non-members
don’t have access to appeared to be one of the motives for consumers’ interac-
tions in the brand page. For example, the fast-food chain celebrated the
Father’s day on the page by offering customers prizes if they perform a certain
action. This can be shown in the following post “It’s Father’s Day – give Dad
a break! Tell us below why your Dad is the best for a chance to win a combo meal”.
Many customers responded to this post by describing how much they love their
fathers. An example of these posts is the post of one male customer. He said
“Dad is the best because he is always there for me and my 2 brothers and my mam
he protects us all 24/7 all day all night so that is why I think my dad deserves it”.
Also, in response to a post that asked consumers to share the post with their
friends to get a certain discount, many consumers commented on the post and
asked their friends to share it. One of the male consumers said the following
words: “I really enjoy the cups you give us when we share the posts, I simply thank
you”.
(4) Socialising. Socialising motive was evident in the posts, where customers used
the page to interact with other like-minded consumers. Customers not only
interacted with the posts from the fast food brand but also they interacted
with each other. For example, a female customer asked the following question
on the page “Please advise me whether to order this meal or not”. A male
customer responded to that post by advising her to order it by the following
words “The meal is awesome, it is very big and tasty”. Another example of
socializing motive is the case of a female consumer who asked the following
question on the brand page “Please recommend a sandwich for me to order”.
A male participant responded to that post by suggesting a certain sandwich and
sharing his consumption experience.
(5) Expression of emotions. The fan page contained posts that reflected different
types of emotions and feelings. These emotions can be classified broadly into
positive and negative emotions towards the fast food brand. Positive emotions
are evident in posts that show consumers’ happiness, satisfaction or even love.
On the other hand, customers reported negative feelings like disappointment and
anger in their posts. Here are some examples: A female customer expressed her
satisfaction by the brand by writing the following post “My daughter said to me.
Mummy you should go there and order a meal. We visited your branch and we
were very delighted and satisfied with everything”. Another male participant
expressed his love for the brand by uploading a picture of heart on the brand
 JOURNAL OF GLOBAL SCHOLARS OF MARKETING SCIENCE 303

page and by saying the following words “I love your chips, your sandwiches and
everything you introduce, you are fascinating”. Another female participant said
“I am on diet now and I can’t visit you, I will finish my diet and will order you
immediately, I love you”. On the other hand, a female customer reported her
disappointment from the brand by writing the following words “It’s funny how
whenever I visit you and it does not matter where it is, there are never any special
offers and its always full price. Nothing new about you!!!”. Another female
customer reported her anger from the service through the following posting
the following words: “I cannot believe I waited all that time to get the meal, and at
the end I got a wrong sandwich delivered to my house.
(6) Brand Advocacy. One of the motives that make some consumers interact in the
brand page is to advocate and defend their favourite brand. It seems that some
consumers are loyal to the brand to the extent that makes them go and reply to
other negative comments. This is apparent in the following examples: A male
consumer indicated his satisfaction by the fast food brand by responding to one
of the brand posts by the following statement “Despite I hate junk food, but you
have the most delicious sandwiches ever”. Another female consumer respondent
to another female consumer who was complaining from the small size of the
sandwiches by the following words: “I am not with you in your complain, the
sandwich is very big and I get full from the first bite, It is really a good sandwich”
(7) Entertainment. One of the important uses that appeared in the posts is the
entertainment motive. Many consumers followed the funny posts from the brand
and wrote positive and funny comments on it. For example, one male consumer
indicated his enthusiasm about a certain sandwich by saying a funny comment
“This sandwich should be called the prince”. Another female customer posted
some pictures of prizes she won before with the meals. She also said the
following words in response to some pictures of games that the brand page
moderators put on the page “I want to order these games, I feel like a child. When
I have children I will buy these meals to get those funny games”. The brand page
managers as well as many other customers kept replying to that post in a funny
way.
(8) Enhancing social image. Social media with its interactive nature allows people to
create desirable images about themselves by posting pictures and other information
on their profiles on these networks (Tamburrini, Cinnirella, Jansen, & Bryden,
2015). Thus, they seek to enhance their social identity through these online inter-
actions with others (Wang et al., 2015). From the content analysis of the posts, it
was apparent that many customers used the brand page to show their identification
with the brand. In other words, they used the brand to enhance their self-esteem
and their social image. For example, a female customer posted a picture of herself
while eating in the restaurant with her friends. She also invited other friends to
come and see the picture by tagging them. Another male customer wrote the
following sentence and tagged his friends to see the post.” This is the sandwich
that I order every day. It is expensive but beautiful”. These two posts indicate that
some customers use the brand page to build their social identity.
304 H. RASHEED GABER ET AL.

To conclude, the current research study provides academics and practitioners with
some insights on the reasons that make consumers actively engage in social media
based brand communities by adopting the uses and gratifications theory.

Academic contribution, managerial implications, limitations and directions

for future research
The development of the internet and social media has largely affected the customer
engagement marketing (Dijkmans, Kerkhof, & Beukeboom, 2015; Kotler & Armstrong,
2016). Traditionally, prior research has focused on the factors consumers desire by their
participation in offline brand communities, e.g., (Algesheimer et al., 2005; de
Chernatony et al., 2008). This research expands theoretical understanding of brand
communities to the online context. It highlights the vital role of social media in
communicating with customers through brand communities embedded in its platforms.
In recent years, consumers have been developing continuous resistance and avoidance
towards traditional advertising media due to advertising clutter (Elliott & Speck, 1998;
Hammer, Riebe, & Kennedy, 2009). Thus, when traditional marketing strategies are not
effective in the current competitive environment, social media, with its interactive
nature, represents an excellent opportunity for companies to market their products
and services. Hence, by engaging their customers, companies will be able to establish
deeper relationships that go beyond buying brands (Park & Kim, 2014).
This paper also contributes by presenting the motivations that make consumers
interact with social media based brand communities in Egypt. Social media marketing
practices are considered in the infancy stage in Egypt where many companies are
starting to recognise the power of social media in communication with customers
(Gaber & Wright, 2014; Saad & Badran, 2017). Prior literature related to consumers’
motivations to interact with brand communities embedded in social networking web-
sites has mainly focused on western markets that have been using social media market-
ing from an earlier stage (Dessart et al., 2015). Thus, the contribution of this paper lies
in exploring why consumers interact with this innovative form of marketing in
a culture that hasn’t gained much attention in the previous literature.
Through adopting the uses and gratification theory, this article expands the focus of
that theory to the context of social media based brand communities. Specifically,
identifying why consumers use Facebook brand pages would be useful to both aca-
demics and practitioners. For instance, the study showed that consumers visit Facebook
brand pages for different reasons which are: information seeking, complaining, socializ-
ing, obtaining incentives, entertainment seeking, expression of emotions, brand advo-
cacy and enhancing social image. Given the uniqueness of Facebook as the most widely
used social media network worldwide, the current study offers some insights to market-
ers of the fast food who are mainly targeting young consumers. Also, to the best of
knowledge of the researchers, the current study is one of the very few studies which
investigated consumer perception of social media marketing in Egypt.
The findings of this article provide several useful guidelines for fast food chains to
follow when they adopt Facebook brand pages for marketing communication.
Specifically, it outlines several expected benefits for brands from adopting successful
social media marketing strategies on their brand pages. These suggestions are based
 JOURNAL OF GLOBAL SCHOLARS OF MARKETING SCIENCE 305

upon the uses consumers’ have in these brand communities. The expected benefits are
grouped into eight categories:

(1) Customer relationship management/Complaint Handling. Given the conveni-

ence of accessibility of the brand pages to the target market of fast food chains,
these brand pages should be treated a main platform for solving consumers
complains. Brand managers must make sure to answer all the questions that are
posted on the brand page in a credible and quick manner.
(2) Gaining brand awareness. Companies should benefit from the high penetration
of Facebook among consumers. Since one of the main reasons that make
consumers visit the brand pages is to get information about brand, Facebook
brand pages can be used to inform and remind consumers with the new offers
and sandwiches. Informative posts can contain information about branch loca-
tion and prices of meals.
(3) Applying Sales promotions. Since consumers join brand pages to get access to
offers and discounts that non-members don’t have access to, it is critical for
brand managers to post a steady stream of offers on the brand pages. These posts
can be certain discounts in certain occasions or when consumers answer specific
question. An important thing is to offer members with an advantage that is not
available to non-members; thus online coupons can be used to encourage con-
sumers to actively engage in the brand page.
(4) Engaging consumers. Due to the interactive nature of social media, brand pages
should be treated as a two-way communication between brands and consumers.
Thus, companies should make sure to post interactive content that encourages
consumers’ participation. For example, brand managers can ask consumers to
name their favourite sandwich or tell nostalgic stories about their memories with
the brand.
(5) Access new audiences. Given the targeting capabilities that social media pro-
vides, companies can easily target consumers based on their locations. An advice
to multinational chains that have branches in different cities is to include
relevant information about all cities and don’t focus on only few cities.
(6) Supporting other offline and online marketing efforts. Because brand pages are
online communities that can be adopted for updating consumers with new
offers, it is critical for that channel to deliver the same marketing message that
the company aims for. In other words, it should be used as an integrated
marketing communication plans.
(7) Word of mouth/Viral Marketing. Given the share feature available on Facebook
brand pages, companies can benefit from this form free word of mouth. Thus,
when consumers perform a certain action in brand pages such as liking or
commenting favourable on certain post, this can appear to their social network.
Accordingly, brand pages should be treated with much care to gain that
advantage.

In summary, this study underscores the need to treat brand pages as a main market-
ing channel for fast food chains. Brand pages on various social networking sites offer
excellent opportunities for companies, including fast food chains, to engage their
306 H. RASHEED GABER ET AL.

consumers. Engaging consumers on brand pages can be important since companies can
collect information about consumers through these online communities (Simon et al.,
2016). Engaged members usually express their feelings and feedback about the brand on
these pages. This allows companies to gain access to important information about their
brands’ performance, which provides a basis for improved products and services. Also,
the brand-related conversations between marketers and consumers on the brand pages
can give companies useful insights for the development of new products and services.
Furthermore, the findings offer managers some useful insights for engaging consumers
by providing various functional, hedonic and monetary content or benefits on their
brand pages. Thus, the current study represents a response to several calls by practi-
tioners for understanding how to engage their customers on social media. Furthermore,
the findings of this research indicate that Facebook brand pages can be an ultimate
place for engaging young consumers with fast food brands. Furthermore, the findings
offer managers with some useful insights for engaging consumers by providing various
functional, hedonic and monetary content or benefits on their brand pages. Thus, the
current study represents a response to several calls by practitioners for understanding
how to engage their customers on social media.
Despite the contributions that this article provides, it has thrown up many questions
in need of further investigation: First, the current study was conducted only on
Facebook brand pages, as the most popular form of online brand communities
embedded in social networks. More research is needed to better understand consumer
engagement factors on other social networking sites. Second, this study investigated
consumers of only one industry, which is the fast food industry in Egypt. It is suggested
that the study should be replicated in other industries because the factors that con-
tribute in building brand love and overall brand equity in online brand communities
may vary from one industry to another. Third, in the current study, only brand pages
that are formed and operated by companies were examined. A recommendation for
future studies is to investigate online brand communities that are initiated and man-
aged by consumers. Thus, it will be interesting to understand the differences in
consumers’ responses and interactions towards both firm-created and user-generated
content on the social media.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

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