How To Hook Customers With Facebook
(A2023-114373)

AUTHORS

Tom Wielheesen, University of Groningen; Laurens Sloot, University of Groningen; Tammo Bijmolt, University of Groningen

ABSTRACT

Social media has become an integral part of today’s society. To inform and convince consumers to become (loyal) customers, local businesses increasingly have an ‘online presence’. Particularly, because social media allow them to quickly interact with their local target group. In this research, we use social media data from 139 grocery stores to explore how their social media activity leads to online engagement. In particular, we study how brand post characteristics (i.e., post frequency, post theme, the vividness of posts, and whether employees are featured in posts) affect social media engagement of consumers (i.e., likes, comments, and shares) and how this relation is moderated by brand page and physical store characteristics. The insights of this study can be used by local stores to better understand how to increase (online) engagement with their target group, and thus, to improve the success of their social media strategy.