Title: Engagement and reactions of brand posts on brand fan pages in Facebook: an investigation of brand posts' characteristics

Authors: Ioannis Antoniadis; Costas Assimakopoulos; Symeon Paltsoglou

Addresses: Department of Regional and Cross Border Studies, University of Western Macedonia, Kozani, Greece ' Department of Organizations Administration Marketing and Tourism, International Hellenic University, Thessaloniki, Greece ' Department of Communication and Digital Media, University of Western Macedonia, Kastoria, Greece

Abstract: Social networking sites (SNSs) are considered to be an essential channel of marketing communication with consumers and stakeholders alike. In this paper, the factors that increase the engagement of brands' posts in SNSs are investigated, by examining the most popular 83 Greek brand pages on Facebook analysing a total number of 8,727 posts, using an OLS regression model. The novelty of this research lies in the inclusion of the recently at the time introduced reaction to Facebook. Our findings imply that richness of content (images, videos), message length and positive reactions increase the engagement and the popularity of posts. On the other hand, posting time does not seem to have a statistically significant impact on the engagement of a post. Our results expand the existing literature in understanding the ways consumers interact with brand posts on Facebook including reactions, and finally offer suggestions for further research.

Keywords: social networking sites; SNS; consumer engagement; popularity; Facebook reactions; Facebook brand page.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIMA.2021.117529

International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising, 2021 Vol.15 No.4, pp.352 - 367

Received: 07 Sep 2019
Accepted: 09 Sep 2019
Published online: 13 Sep 2021 *

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