Essay On How Likes On Face-Book Improve Marketing Communications

Summary of Article

Wallace, Ellaine, Buil, Isabel,Chernatony, Leslie, and Hogan, Michael. Who Like You and Why? A Typology of Facebook Fans from “Fan”-atics and Self-Expressives to Utilitarians and Authentics.Journal of Advertising Research, 54.1(2014): 92-109
In this article, Wallace et al, argue that Facebook fans stand to benefit from a great marketing opportunity because of their loyalty and love for different brands. Additionally, attracting fans on Facebook is an important communications-marketing strategy for various managers. Equally, studying the four important groups of face-book fans can enhance and bolster brand communications and targeting strategies. Furthermore, various research studies have been conducted focusing on the behaviour Facebook enthusiasts. For instance, studies have been conducted to establish the number of “Likes” on Facebook. However, little is known regarding the profile of audiences targeted and the reasons why different consumers stich to particular brands. As such, the main objective or purpose of the article is to highlight the significance of cluster scrutiny as an approach for identifying various kinds of Facebook fans.
Facebook fans can be classified into four types: the Authentic, the Self-Expressive, the Utilitarian, and the“Fan”-atic. Specifically, self-expressive fans have a tendency of impressing others, and they are easily influenced by messages concerning the social desirability of brands. On the other hand, “Fan”-atics have strong brand love and loyalty. They always assist to spread information through word of mouth because of their many Facebook friends they have. However, Utilitarian fans have lower brand love and loyalty; therefore, they rarely spread information about various brands as well as their elements. In addition, authentic fans have social ties that are strong, although they are not very active on Facebook, and they can be reached through their networks of friendship on Facebook.
Based on the above analysis, Authentic fans are mainly females, likes merely because of interests that are genuine. Their leadership opinion is low and average opinion seeking and their self-esteem is high. Equally, they exhibit attributes such as low materialism, low self-monitoring levels, lower number of friends on face-book, medium word of mouth, high loyalty and love for brands; however, the brands are not self-expressive. On the other hand, utilitarians are mainly males and are less likely to seek an opinion or become opinion leaders. Similarly, they “Like” images or posts because of as a way of gaining incentives, and they also have medium self-esteem. They have medium Facebook friends and exhibit relatively low ability for word of mouth. Further, they show the lowest love and loyalty for brands because their brand is not self-expressive.
Self-expressive are mainly males and the “like” posts to create and image for themselves. Ideally, they are average opinion seekers and opinion leaders. Their self-esteem is medium, but they have very many Facebook friends. They are widely characterized by high word of mouth, but have average brand loyalty and brand love. Lastly, Fanatics are mainly females and like posts because of incentives. However, incentives are not the main motivations towards their liking. They “Like” because they want to create an image as well as for genuine interests. They are opinion seekers and opinion leaders. They have relatively very high self-esteem levels, but exhibit utmost materialism. Additionally, their self-monitoring behaviour is high, and they have numerous Facebook friends. Equally, they exhibit the highest word of mouth characteristics. Their love and loyalty for brand is high and self-expressive.

The like button on Facebook acts as a straightforward tool for engaging consumers in the marketing communications’ co-creation. Advertisers can proactively develop Fan pages on Face-book and encourage Facebook users to become Fans by hitting the Like button. Consequently, when Fans click the Like button, they automatically get updates about the brand in the news feed on face-book. Additionally, Facebook confirmed that individuals who click the Like button are more connected, active, and engaged that average users of Face-book. Equally, Fans spend over five times the sum of money on the liked brands than non-Fans. Therefore, the like button offers a means for companies to attract customers that are connected to their shared networks and enhance their brands’ message breadth.
Marketing managers can measure the investment returns and brand engagement by counting the number of Likes on their Fan page. Equally, the numbers of Likes provide metric of social-media and offer a proxy measure for the word of mouth. However, there are numerous concerns about the effectiveness of this kind of marketing communications approach whether a customer truly likes a brand, or the likes are merely for financial gain.
Indeed, the article offers a strong foundation for exploring the various kinds of Facebook Fans. In addition, the authors outline how they like different brands depending on their personal attitudes and social characteristics. Equally, the study findings provide four types of Fans: the authentic fans, the utilitarian fans, the self-expressive fans, and the fan-atic fans. Nevertheless, further studies should be conducted that analyses factors that enhance intrinsic motivation based on the subject under study. Additionally, there is need to focus on social network role in disseminating marketing messages via Fan page likes. The studies conducted by the article contend that distinctions in the role of a brand and social-tie strength helps in informing the follower typology.