Whom do you follow?: Examining Social Distance in Facebook Friendship and its Influence on Brand Message Adoption

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  • March 19, 2019
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  • Kim, Hyosun
    • Affiliation: Hussman School of Journalism and Media, Mass Communication Graduate Program
Abstract
  • With the growing popularity of Facebook among consumers, companies are excited about the promising business potential of the medium as a communication channel, but they are also lukewarm about adopting it in their marketing strategies due to a lack of clear understanding of the communication dynamics that occur on Facebook. Drawing on the recent study by Lipsman et al. (2012), the present study expanded the idea of targeting friends of fans on Facebook by adapting the concept of social distance and applying social identity theory. A 2 (social distance) X 2 (self-brand connection) X 2 (type of branded content) between-subject experiment was designed to understand the different influence of closeness of Facebook friends, the degree to which people feel connections to brands, and the type of branded content as these affect source perceptions, attitudes toward brands, and Facebook engagement. The stimuli consisted of brand fan pages or status updates hypothetically sent by a close friend or acquaintance on Facebook, the featured brand representing a brand with which the receiver liked but either felt or did not feel a close connection. Facebook engagement consisted of intent to "like" the message on Facebook, share the message on Facebook, comment on the message, tag someone with the content, or join the fan page. Results indicated direct influences of the social distance of message senders on source perceptions, as well as an effect of self-brand connection on attitudes toward brands. Results also indicated effects of social distance on liking and commenting, and of self-brand connections on all Facebook engagement measures. The type of branded content did not have as much of an influence on outcomes as was hypothesized. Findings are discussed with respect to developing strategies for marketing on Facebook.
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  • In Copyright
Advisor
  • Carpentier, Francesca
  • Bettman, James
  • Ware, William
  • Sinclair, Janas
  • Gibson, Rhonda
Degree
  • Doctor of Philosophy
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Graduation year
  • 2015
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  • Chapel Hill, NC
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  • There are no restrictions to this item.
Date uploaded
  • June 23, 2015

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