Spreading Social Media Messages on Facebook: An Analysis of Restaurant Business-to-Consumer Communications
#Assignment Numero Uno
The research article I was assigned was the paper 'Spreading Social Media Messages on Facebook: An Analysis of Restaurant Business-to-Consumer Communications' by Linchi Kwok and Bei Yu. The paper aims at depicting the underlying characteristics of the messages hospitality companies are employing to communicate to their customers on Facebook. Throughout the paper they explain which sample techniques were used and why as well as providing reasons why this research topic is important and worth exploring (external validity). Furthermore, they present the limitations of the conducted research as the sample they sourced their information from was quite small and it should therefore be carefully applied in other areas of business. The main findings the authors found in their research was that certain keywords are perceived more negative (selling words such as "win" or "check") and others more positive. The positive keywords included words that describe holidays and special occasions and focus more on the company's commitment to their communities.
Moreover, they discovered that conversational messages that interact with the customer on a friendship basis are more embraced than "conventional" sales and marketing messages.
The last important finding was that posts containing photos or status updates where the type of message with highest interaction opposing to video or hyperlink messages where interaction was not as high.
One aspect I found quite important that was not highlighted in the paper was another research that Kwok and Yu were referring to. It showed that after traveler's have left reviews for services on various webpages a disappearing small numbers of company's have actually responded to them (O'Connor, 2010). This was one aspect on which I would like to focus in the new research questions.
Research Question 1: How is the brand loyalty going to be effected when companies start to respond to reviews left by customers on rating webpages?
Hypothesis 1: Increasing the interaction of the company to consumer through responding to reviews has an effect on brand loyalty.
Hypothesis 2: Through acknowledging this opportunity companies open up a two-way communication channel with their customers.
Hypothesis 3: Companies employing this way of communicating with their customers in their aftercare are more trustworthy and perform better than companies that don't.
The second research question that arose to me while reading the article was that this research is only concerned with big, multinational companies with a high yearly profit. Here I would like to put the focus on SME's, who play an underestimated role in the business and are often not recognized as influential. Nevertheless, they account for 99.8% of the number
of firms in the euro area, 60% of turnover and 70% of employment (European Central Bank, 2016). Therefore I think it's cruicial to also look at the way these companies communicate with their stakeholders through Facebook.
Research Question 2: In what ways does SME's communication differ from big global players in regards to communicating with their customers through Facebook?
Hypothesis 1: Big companies with high profit communicate differently to their stakeholders than SME's.
Hypothesis 2: Messages send out by SME's are embraced and trusted more than messages send out by big companies.
Hypothesis 2: Messages send out by SME's are embraced and trusted more than messages send out by big companies.
Hypothesis 3: Customers of SME's as well as big companies like a conversational tone of message more than a message that contains sales and marketing phrases.
