Using social media to reach consumers of Alento : a content analysis of its official Facebook page

Abstract

Traditionally, consumers spent time on the Internet purely to expend content: they read, watched, and used it to purchase products and services. However, nowadays consumers are using social media platforms to co-create, share, modify and discuss Internet content. This symbolises a “social media phenomenon” that can now influence a company’s sales, reputation and survival (Kietzmann et al., 2011, p. 241). According to one recent estimate, there are over 1.79 billion monthly active Facebook users (Facebook newsroom, 2016), with an increase of 16% year-over-year, giving Facebook the largest number of Social Networking Sites (SNS) users in the world. Therefore, Facebook has become a very popular form of social media for companies to promote their brands or products (Cheung & Leung, 2016). Nevertheless, many executives mismanage or ignore this social network because they do not understand its importance and how to engage with it (Kietzmann et al., 2011). The purpose of this thesis is to provide a solution for a problem raised by Alento. Alento is a human resources and consulting company that intended to understand how the company should engage with its official Facebook page. With this in mind, an internship program was created which would focus on the gathering of information to access and analyse the company’s presence on Facebook. Kietzmann et al. (2011) proposed seven functional building blocks of social media engagement with fans: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation and groups. This paper aims to find out which of the functional blocks of social media engagement with fans are the most important for Alento’s Facebook fan page, in order to understand how the company should engage with it. We also tried to understand the effect of some demographic and social factors in the perception of the importance of the seven functional building blocks of Facebook engagement with fans. In order to understand it, we conducted a survey that was taken by 205 Alento Facebook fans. Results contradicted expectations; they showed that the most important functional building blocks for Alento’s Facebook fan page’s engagement with fans are “presence”, “identity” and “reputation”. Furthermore, there are some factors that influence the perception of the importance of each of the seven functional building blocks for Alento’s Facebook fan page’s engagement with fans. In parallel, we analysed the results of some Facebook Marketing strategies developed during the internship. After extensive analysis of the data collected, and with the organisation’s collaboration, a plan of action was defined. The aim of this plan was to implement structural changes in Alento’s Facebook Marketing strategies on a short to medium term basis.