Facebook Essay Examples

Introduction

Other media used for communication are not comparable to the internet media. According to Shifman (17), the internet has increased accuracy (fidelity), can make increased copies of a material per unit time (fecundity) and the information can be stored in archives for a longer time (longevity) than any other channel of communication. The use of the internet in the marketing of various business enterprises and their products has proliferated the world market a great deal. In fact, the internet has served many to improve the reach of their marketing prospects to the extent of the whole world. In other words, the use of the internet has made reach of various organizations be wider and reach almost anyone across the globe (Nobre and Daniela 140). This creates a picture of the impact that the internet has had on the world businesses. In actuality, the internet has made everything possible for businesses with the blogs, websites, e-mails, and the social sites like the use of twitter. Various researchers have looked towards the impact of the internet but their literature reviews have failed to capture the relationship that people that qualify to be fans on Facebook for an organization’s product and that is what this review is all about.

Discussion

Facebook is among the most indulged social site in the world if not the most used in the sense that the site encompasses millions of social profiles all over the globe. It only makes sense for business to tap into this resource in order to increase awareness of their products and services and in turn increase the number of their customers. In business, it is all about profit and marketing serves to provide customers for one’s products and in turn profits. An organization that lacks the ability to attract customers is doomed to hit the docks and sink in debts because it will be unable to make profits. In three simple words, I mean that marketing is profit. The use of facebook therefore is truly a dream come true for business that end up accumulating likes for their products.
The facebook site, when looked at, has several tools that make it a viable socializing site and among them is the “like” button which many organizations aim for their clients and customers to do for their products. According to Wallace, Buil, de Chernatony, and Hogan (93), those who use the like button in facebook “are more engaged, active, and connected than the average facebook user.” This is quite evident among the facebook users in the sense once an individual likes an organization’s facebook page, he or she receives loads of information and access links to that website and this is an indicator of activity. Thus, the organizations today have learnt of this truth about facebook and so they seek to involve their target customers to like their pages so that they can be given more information and woed over to buy their products or services (Rubio, Javier and Nieves 290).
Despite this intriguing aspect about the like button in facebook, strategizing businesses and organization managers who learnt about prospect use the number of likes as a measure of the word of mouth regarding the spread of knowledge of their products. It is agonizing to come to understand that business managers who use the social media as a site to hunt for new fishing grounds for profits and marketing prospects do not understand the relationship of their brands to their s0-called fans. It is an unimaginable truth that without this knowledge, a manager can never understand whether or not these “fans” are truly potential customers or not. That is the main reason as to why some sites appear to have so many likes, a high word of mouth percentage as mangers measure it but in contrast, have very low customers.
Many companies and organizations that are in the marketing business or are aiming to promote their business seek to increase the number of Facebook likes on their pages where they promote their business. In addition, their efforts are aimed at increasing the number of likes for their brands of products or services. However, as mentioned earlier, the increased liking of the brand’s page is not known as to whether or not is for the product. It is at this juncture that one can really question the effectiveness of this marketing technique used by several managers across the globe to market their globe. In addition, managers use the word of mouth calculated from the number of likes on the brand’s page to find out how many like the brand. It is therefore the manager to find out if the results obtained by the scan of the likes are true or not.
Apart from counting the number of likes a brand is achieving on the facebook pages, companies and organizations using the new technique referred to as like-gating to pool in more fans and likes for their brand. This technique involves the owner of a brand, whether an organization or a company initiating a web page on face book with fine details about the product in the market. However, this information is classified according to only those that have liked that particular page. In truth, this tactic might lead to an increased number of likes for that product but according to Wallace et al. (93) the relationship between the brands online, especially on facebook, and the supposed “fans” is still unclear and it is not a precise measure of the word of mouth using ‘likes ‘ on facebook.
This existing correlation that is thought to exist between a product, where a fan likes the product page on facebook, and business people think that the fan is a probable customer, might be inexistent. This is because; over the internet there are several people with funny intents. This further implicates the fact that the consumers of that particular brand might still be using that product and yet they haven’t come forward in facebook and identified themselves as being fans. In addition, there are those people who like the page and they might not be loyal to that brand and this makes this measure of word of mouth using likes to be subject to questions. The most important thing that a manager has to understand is that the facebook fan base is a typically different population criterion than the normal population one is used to managing such data.
Various classifications have been performed in order to try and understand facebook fans and their product brands. In accordance to behavior, facebook fans have been classified as being potential customers, friends, sweepstakers, happy campers and fair-weather friends. Potential customers are those facebook users who will ‘like’ a product like everyone else but he or she acts quickly and willingly when the brand catches their eye. Friends or otherwise employees are those fans who like a product on facebook just to support its WOM. On the other hand, sweepstakers are those who like in order to win a prize that the company has offered on the web page. Happy campers are those who interact and deal with the site of the brand regularly whereas the fair-weather friends are those who review the product negatively once it does not appeal to them.
After analyzing the facebook fans basing on behavior, there was need to determine how they relate or interact with the brand’s facebook page. In this regard, facebook fans were said to be enthusiasts, advocates or influencers. The enthusiasts are that particular group of fans who wish the whole to be aware that they use a certain brand and in so doing they frequently like the page whenever. Advocates on the other hand, are almost similar to the enthusiasts but they do not use stickers let everyone know. Instead, they are regular participators in the brand’s facebook page through frequent comments. On the other end of the spectrum, the influencers are simply fans, critical ones at that since they participate actively in the content creation of the brand’s page (Wallace et al. 94). The only limitation of the application of this analysis is that it depended maximally upon the observations and inferences rather than the relationship between the fans and the brand.
Wallace et al. (94) suggested that new studies are being designed in order to determine the true correlation that is there between a facebook fan and his brand. As a matter of fact, their study aimed at the new and key prospect that other studies have not touched on before and this included the use of inferences and analysis of facebook fans to create a topology. The target of this study was that it should measure the brand relationships (WOM, brand love, etc), reason why one likes a brand and the personality characteristics of the fans. These three new perspectives will provide the angle that is needed to ascertain to the managers who depend on facebook for marketing as to whether or not they have a true measure of word of mouth (WOM).
The three constructs that have been identified can be used to create a typology. According to the fan’s relationship with the brand, four groups were identified as self-expressive, brand loyalty, brand love and worth of mouth. The self-expressive brands use the brand’s facebook page to express the inner self. The brand loyalty on the other hand implies the degree of the strength of the particular association between a fan and his product (Wallace et al. 94). Brand love on the other hand is complex and has very many perspectives including the passion for that brand, self-brand integration and even the attachment to the brand in the long-term. In truth, this aspect of brand love features a higher form of loyalty to a brand than the earlier defined brand loyalty (Bruwer and Courtney 38). Finally, the worth of mouth is the final association in the sense that this perspective implies the worthiness of the interactions between consumers and what they relate about the product.
Additionally, to address an explanatory fan typology, we may need to understand the reasons as to why the fans liking that brand. For one, by liking the brands on facebook, one keeps informed about the developments of the products. Also, the self-construction aspect where one would like to build one’s profile and wall by frequent association with the product. Finally, fans love the incentives present on the page after liking the product (Upite et al. 63). Apart from the reasons for liking the product brand, the relational structure of the product may influence of the fans. Social ties for instance involves those individuals with great connections with others who might influence other facebook fans, and homophily basically implies that the flow of the influence from one individual to another similar to a network.
On the final aspect to address a working fans typology, Wallace et al. (95) discussed the possible traits that a facebook user might possess. This is because; the liking of the product may be associated with the personal traits in the sense of self- representation. Categorically, there are three unique traits used for the facebook fans and these are self-monitoring, opinion leaders and seekers, and materialism. Self-monitoring are those individuals that would be guided appropriateness and so they seek validating information from others who are also fans of that particular product which in turn affects their choice to like the product or not. The opinion leaders and seekers are those that have large numbers of social ties and are majorly identifiable as the information flows to fans. Materialistic individuals are those that seek their picture rather than associate truly with a brand in the sense that they seek to impress others.

Conclusion

With regards to the determination of the relationship between the product and the facebook fan, or rather how a facebook fan relates with his or her brand, the relationships can be identified. In this sense, the true worth of mouth can be measured from those individuals with many social ties as they affect the flow of information from one individual to another hence building the worth of mouth for a product. Also, understanding the particular correlation between the fan and his brand, an informed decision can be made in the sense that the managers can decide as to whether to improve the brand or not for they can now understand from the measures if it is preferred or not. In other words, the determination of this correlation is the best progress in truly using facebook as a tool for marketing products and surveying the market prospects.

Works cited

Bruwer, Johan, and Courtney Buller. "Product Involvement, Brand Loyalty, and Country-Of-Origin Brand Preferences Of Japanese Wine Consumers." Journal Of Wine Research 24.1 (2013): 38-58. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Nobre, Helena, and Daniela Silva. "Social Network Marketing Strategy And SME Strategy Benefits." Journal Of Transnational Management 19.2 (2014): 138-151. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Rubio, Natalia, Javier Oubiña, and Nieves Villaseñor. "Brand Awareness–Brand Quality Inference And Consumer’S Risk Perception In Store Brands Of Food Products." Food Quality & Preference 32.Part C (2014): 289-298. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Upite, Ilze, et al. "Loyalty Of Consumers To Food In Latvia." Economic Science For Rural Development Conference Proceedings 35 (2014): 62-70. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 Apr. 2015.
Wallace, Elaine, et al. “Who “Likes” You and Why? A typology of Facebook fans from “Fan”-atics and Self-expressives to Utilitarians and Authentics.” Journal of Advertising Research (2014): 92-109. Doi: 10.2501/JAR-54-1-092-109
Shifman, Limor. Memes in Digital Culture. , Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2014. Print.