Title: Attracting and retaining customers on Facebook business pages: a content analysis of an online discussion forum

Authors: Babak Abedin; Hamed Jafarzadeh

Addresses: Faculty of Business and Economics, Macquarie University, North Ryde, 2109, Sydney, Australia ' School of Information Systems, Technology and Management, University of NSW, Kensignton, 2052, Sydney, Australia

Abstract: As social networking sites (SNSs), and in particular Facebook, become more popular among users and as organisations more and more appreciate benefits of communication with customers on Facebook, it has become increasingly important for organisations to attract more customers to their Facebook business pages and to retain them. Yet for many organisations the question is in what ways they can attract more customers to their Facebook page and also how they should use this website to effectively interact with customers. This paper examines the content of business owners' as well as SNSs experts and gurus' online discussions to address this question. The findings suggest partnership and link exchange, content creation and management, and design and promotion are three high-level strategies that organisations can use to attract and retain customers on their Facebook business pages.

Keywords: social networking sites; SNSs; customer relationship management; CRM; social media marketing; customer attraction; customer retention; Facebook business pages; content analysis; online discussion forums; partnerships; link exchange; content creation; promotion; content management; design.

DOI: 10.1504/IJTMKT.2013.055340

International Journal of Technology Marketing, 2013 Vol.8 No.3, pp.304 - 315

Received: 19 Nov 2012
Accepted: 09 May 2013
Published online: 28 Feb 2014 *

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