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Untangling social media excellence: Five typical patterns of super successful posts

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Online social media plays an important role in the mix of many companies’ marketing communications. Thus, scholars have recently tried to uncover patterns that positively affect social media communication effectiveness, predominantly focusing on message characteristics. Although a lot of valuable insights have been generated, it remains unclear what the drivers of ‘super successful posts’ (SSP) are. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to reveal why a very small proportion of social media posts significantly outperforms the majority of other posts. For this purpose, we employed case evidence from the automotive industry and collected 2,000 Facebook posts. In regard to the numbers of likes, comments and shares, the 20 most successful posts each were selected. After removing the duplicates, a final sample of 42 SSP remained. With an explorative multi-level approach, including two focus group sessions, an in-depth analysis was conducted for every post. Aiming to capture a comprehensive picture, we also investigated the context of each post beyond the online environment. With our analysis, we reveal five typical patterns of social media excellence (co-branding, wow effect, cognitive task, timing, and campaign). In addition, we further elaborate on four selected SSP to enhance the understanding of underlying mechanisms. Among other things, our findings are supposed to sensitize practitioners in regard to a broader view on social media posts. Moreover, the understanding about the five patterns of SSP may support practitioners to enhance the popularity of their future posts.
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PROCEEDINGS OF THE 16TH INTERNATIONAL MARKETING TRENDS CONFERENCE
© 2017 | January 26-28, Madrid
Untangling social media excellence: Five typical patterns
of super successful posts
Tobias T. Eismann, Timm F. Wagner, Christian V. Baccarella, and Kai-Ingo Voigt
Online social media plays an important role in the mix of many companies’ marketing communications. Thus, scholars have
recently tried to uncover patterns that positively affect social media communication effectiveness, predominantly focusing on
message characteristics. Although a lot of valuable insights have been generated, it remains unclear what the drivers of ‘super
successful posts’ (SSP) are. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to reveal why a very small proportion of social media posts
significantly outperforms the majority of other posts. For this purpose, we employed case evidence from the automotive industry
and collected 2,000 Facebook posts. In regard to the numbers of likes, comments and shares, the 20 most successful posts each
were selected. After removing the duplicates, a final sample of 42 SSP remained. With an explorative multi-level approach,
including two focus group sessions, an in-depth analysis was conducted for every post. Aiming to capture a comprehensive picture,
we also investigated the context of each post beyond the online environment. With our analysis, we reveal five typical patterns of
social media excellence (co-branding, wow effect, cognitive task, timing, and campaign). In addition, we further elaborate on four
selected SSP to enhance the understanding of underlying mechanisms. Among other things, our findings are supposed to sensitize
practitioners in regard to a broader view on social media posts. Moreover, the understanding about the five patterns of SSP may
support practitioners to enhance the popularity of their future posts.
The Challenge of User Engagement
In 2015, companies worldwide invested more than $18.2
billion in social media advertising, counting about 20% more
than in the previous year (Statista, 2016). These numbers
impressively indicate the growing importance of social media
channels as a marketing tool for companies and highlight the
need for social marketers across various industries to
understand the consequences of their social media activities
(Corstjens & Umblijs, 2012; Mangold & Faulds, 2009; Naylor,
Lamberton, & West, 2012).
Today, social marketers face a broad range of different
social media sites on the Internet, such as Facebook, Twitter
or YouTube. Although there are similarities across the variety
of social media sites, there are also significant differences in
regard to interaction and communication mechanisms (Burton
& Soboleva, 2011; Kietzmann, Hermkens, McCarthy, &
Silvestre, 2011; Smith, Fischer, & Yongjian, 2012). For
instance, the use of the hashtag (#) differs on Twitter
compared to the social networking site (SNS) Facebook.
However, in order to make best possible use of each individual
social media site, it is essential to understand the specific
characteristics of each platform (Hutton & Fosdick, 2011).
On Facebook, for example, by creating corporate SNS
identities in the form of brand fan pages (Lin & Lu, 2011),
marketing messages can be spread through posts in order to
interact and connect with customers (Lipsman, Mud, Rich, &
Bruich, 2012; McCorkindale, 2010; Trefzger & Dünfelder,
2016). Typically, users engage with these marketing messages
through liking, sharing or commenting on brand posts (Araujo,
Neijens, & Vliegenthart, 2015; Ashley & Tuten, 2015;
McAlexander, Schouten, & Koenig, 2002; Muniz & O’Guinn,
2001). These actions of user engagement mostly indicate
agreement with or affinity towards a brand, product or just the
message of the post (Kabadayi & Price, 2014). Additionally,
Wallace et al. (2014) found that fans with higher level of
engagement on social media posts tend to develop closer
relationships with the respective brand. That is why user
engagement is a meaningful criterion for brand success on
SNS and thus an important objective for all marketing
managers.
For social media users, today’s vast availability of
information easily causes overload or overstimulation in
information consumption (Moore & Harris, 1996). This is
especially true for SNS such as Facebook because more and
more brands compete with their posts for the limited attention
of the user. Interestingly, although most brands have already
put a lot of effort into their social media activities and have
therefore reached a professional level of social media
expertise, there are brand posts which are much more
successful than other posts. As a consequence, it is of
particular importance that marketers understand the
peculiarities of these super successful posts (SSP) on social
media.
Several scholars have already started to uncover the drivers
of post success on SNS. These research activities have
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predominantly focused on certain message strategies relating
to the content or design of a post and have revealed various
valuable insights (e.g. Sabate, Berbegal-Mirabent, Cañabate,
& Lebherz, 2014; Trefzger, Baccarella, Scheiner, & Voigt,
2016; Trefzger, Baccarella, & Voigt, 2016). However,
research has not yet examined those few posts that outperform
the majority of other posts.
Against this background, the aim of this study is to analyze
brands’ SSP in order to untangle the underlying mechanisms
that help a SNS post to stand out from the masses of other
posts. Thereby, we contribute to the literature of social media
research and particularly expand the understanding of SNS
user engagement by a new perspective. For practitioners, we
generate valuable insights on how to cross the chasm between
a solid and an excellent social media strategy.
Our article is structured as follows. First, we explain the
applied methodology, which we performed to collect and
analyze the data. Then, we present five typical patterns of
social media excellence, followed by further explanations on
four selected post examples. Our article concludes with
implications for practitioners and scholars, as well as by
outlining limitations and future research avenues.
Methodology
Data Collection
To identify SSP, we collected 2,000 Facebook posts from
automotive brands. We used Facebook as the research object
because it is the most popular SNS with more than one billion
active users per day (Statista, 2015). We focused on one
industry, aiming to avoid distortions related to industry-
specific circumstances (Baccarella, Scheiner, Trefzger, &
Voigt, 2016). The posts have been collected from the ten most
valuable car brands, compiled by Millward Brown (2014).
Accordingly, we included posts by Audi, BMW, Chevrolet,
Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota, and
VW (Volkswagen). In December 2014, 200 Facebook posts
from each brand were collected and manually saved as
screenshots. Between the latest post and the first day of data
collection, there was a time span of around five weeks. In
accordance with e.g. Sabate et al. (2014), we assumed that,
after those five weeks, additional user engagement with a post
is negligible. Since photo album posts are automatically re-
posted when new photos are added to the album, these posts
may go through several rounds of user engagement. We
therefore excluded those 52 posts. Our data set then comprised
1,948 SNS posts.
After data collection, the number of likes, comments, and
shares of every post was assessed. We then calculated relative
performance measures for each post by dividing the number of
likes, comments, and shares by the number of respective
Facebook page followers. On average, the brands’ Facebook
pages had 7.14 million (SD = 6.00 million) followers. The
BMW page had most followers (19.03 million), and Hyundai
had least followers (1.76 million). Finally, we multiplied the
calculated measures by one million for clarity in presentation.
Thereby, we generated performance measures (adjusted user
engagement) which indicate how much user engagement
(likes, comments, shares) a post received among one million
page followers. We consider this user engagement
measurement as more useful than directly looking at the
number of likes, comments, and shares, regardless of the
number of page followers.
During the next step, the most successful posts were
identified. In particular, we collected the top 20 posts for
(adjusted) likes, comments, and shares across all brands.
Because some of the posts were in more than one of the three
top 20 lists, the final sample of SSP comprised 42 posts.
Data Analysis
An in-depth analysis of each of the final 42 SSP was
thoroughly conducted. For this purpose, our research team
consisted of two senior researchers and two doctoral students
with appropriate experience in the social media research field.
The analysis followed a twofold explorative approach inspired
by the qualitative case study method (Baxter & Jack, 2008).
First, we comprehensively examined each post to understand
and determine similarities across the sample. Second, we
investigated the online and offline context of each post. This
step involved an extensive online research on each post’s
related topics during the time the post was created. The
research included brand websites, press websites, websites
mentioned in the post, search engines, and other SNS brand
fan pages. The goal was to reveal the strategy behind each post
and how it was embedded in the respective brand’s media
ecosystem and marketing activities. Overall, a holistic, in-
depth analysis of each post was conducted.
Subsequently, two focus group sessions were performed
one with six social media practitioners, and one with seven
marketing students. During these sessions, the participants
were asked in regard to every single post to discuss the reasons
for its popularity. At this stage, we provided necessary
background information on every post, which we had gathered
beforehand in our context analyis. After the focus group
sessions were completed, we aggregated the results in our
research team. A final discussion clearly led to five typical
patterns of social media excellence, which are presented in the
following.
Figure 1: Five patterns of social media excellence
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The Five Patterns of Social Media Excellence
The framework we use (see Figure 1) consists of five distinct
patterns that were identified among SSP: co-branding, wow
effect, cognitive task, timing, and campaign. Although each
block reflects a specific pattern that can be operationalized
with various actions, the underlying mechanisms remain the
same. The five patterns are neither mutually exclusive nor do
they all have to be implemented in a SNS post. In the following
paragraph, we introduce the five patterns one by one and
describe underlying mechanisms that support user
engagement.
Pattern 1: CO-BRANDING
The first identified pattern refers to co-branding. In fact, many
of the SSP had in common that they utilized at least a second
brand to maximize user engagement. The second brand might
be a celebrity, a newspaper brand or any other brand. The
approach of bundling different brands in one post is aligned
with a co-branding strategy as a means to gain more media
exposure (Washburn, Till, & Priluck, 2000).
Figure 2: Ford Mustang’s 50th anniversary
Joint advertising as a specific strategy in co-branding was
also used, for example, within the Apple Macintosh
Powerbook campaign that featured the movie Mission
Impossible as the second brand (Grossman, 1997). Several
authors already described the concept of co-branding and
discussed advantages and disadvantages of it (e.g. Hillyer &
Tikoo, 1995; Krishnan, 1996; Rao & Ruekert, 1994). An
important goal of co-branding in social media posts is to reach
the community of the second brand, in addition to the own
followers. This increases the potential audience of the social
media post and may lead to increasing user engagement.
There are two ways to take advantage of another brand.
First, the sole naming of another brand or celebrity can help to
draw more attention towards the own post. That, in turn, may
lead to more user engagement. Nissan, for instance, posted a
photo of their new pickup truck with a built-in diesel engine
by Cummins Inc., which is a US-based company selling diesel
engines worldwide. Although there is no link to the Cummins
Inc. fan page, which has almost 400,000 SNS followers, this
co-branding enabled Nissan to leverage the brand awareness
of Cummins as well.
Second, brands use a direct link to another brand or
celebrity fan page or website incorporated into the post. For
example, Nissan posted a press review of the Nissan GT-R and
integrated a link of the New York Daily News fan page with
more than 2.1 million Facebook followers. Ford linked press
websites like Mashable (www.mashable.com) or ESPN
Magazine (www.espn.com/magazine) to their own posts (see
Figure 2). Honda included a link to the fan page of the
entertainer and celebrity Nick Cannon who has more than 2.7
million followers on Facebook. Toyota also tried to harness the
network of the celebrity Oprah Winfrey in a social media post
by advertising and pointing out to be a financial supporter of
the Life-You-Want-Campaign. This campaign consists of
different events and is meant to motivate people to pursue their
individual dreams.
Pattern 2: WOW EFFECT
The wow effect is the second identified pattern derived in our
SSP analysis. Especially in the social media environment,
users are confronted with a large amount of information.
However, they are not able to process all available information
(Moore & Harris, 1996). Against this background, social
media managers face an intense competition about the limited
attention of social media users. This leads to a situation where
all brands try to generate a high level of user engagement
through differentiating from the mass of other posts. In our
sample, it is clearly noticeable that SSP often create a moment
of surprise and astonishment for the users (wow effect).
Studies about the effect of surprise state that peoples’
attention is predominantly drawn towards completely new and
unseen content or content that is in some way special and does
not belong to a standard solution (Itti & Baldi, 2009). In order
to achieve this wow effect, brands in our sample followed two
approaches.
First, in order to create a special post that contains
something that deviates from a standard solution, SSP strongly
emphasize luxury, high-performance, future or innovative
technology features of the product. Mercedes-Benz, for
instance, posted videos of a highly sophisticated future truck
(see Figure 3) or of future LED headlamps. Nissan focused on
high-performance features by posting pictures of their sports
car Nissan GT-R and the potential successor Nissan Concept
2020 Vision GT. Honda published a post about the first ever
car built-in vacuum cleaner in the new Honda Odyssey to
capture the attention of their followers.
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Second, adding up on these emphasized features, user
engagement increases even more if the post unveils a
completely new product that has not been shown ever before.
Mercedes-Benz, for example, published the first pictures of
their new Mercedes-AMG GT. The post contained a strong
high-performance and luxury focus and additionally included
the first picture of this new car on the SNS.
Figure 3: Mercedes-Benz Future Truck 2025
Pattern 3: COGNITIVE TASK
The third pattern of SSP is related to a cognitive task. These
posts raise a question demanding a direct user response and,
thus, provoke user engagement in terms of comments. Brand
posts by Ford, for example, asked the SNS user about their
favorite Ford color and their first ever driven Ford model. This
mechanism mainly focuses on provoking comments as one
way of user engagement.
Another driver of user engagement in this pattern might be
the fact that posts containing a cognitive task stimulate the
user’s curiosity. According to the theory of human epistemic
curiosity, strange, surprising or puzzling information arouse
users curiosity. This triggers the user to spend more time with
the puzzling information in order to create meaning out of it or
to relate the unknown information to something familiar
(Berlyne, 1954). Ford, for instance, published a post showing
a photo of the parking space of a Ford manufacturing site of
1965 with a lot of different Ford cars pictured. The SNS user
is requested to name the different Ford models portrayed.
Another example of a Ford post shows a macro photograph of
a car part that is supposed to be named as well. Moreover,
Volkswagen posted a picture of a Volkswagen Golf GTI filled
with soccer balls and asked the users to guess how many soccer
balls can fit in the car (see Figure 4). The best performing post
of this category and a prime example of the cognitive task
pattern was published by Toyota and shows a picture puzzle,
which had to be encoded. We elaborate on this example later.
Figure 4: Volkswagen soccer ball challenge
Pattern 4: TIMING
Our results reveal that many SSP are characterized by an
intelligent publication timing. These posts take advantage of a
certain event that is already in the focus of attention. Agenda-
setting theory supports this notion by indicating that an
audience perceives issues as more important as more emphasis
is placed on it by mass media (McCombs & Shaw, 1972). The
more the media already covers an event, the more attention it
gets and, therefore, the more user engagement is generated on
SNS. This means that publishing a post related to an event at
the time when the attention for this event peaks helps brands
to reach out to new audiences.
Especially two types of events could be identified which
especially drove user engagement. First, non-brand-related
events such as the FIFA World Cup, Mother’s Day, Father’s
Day or Independence Day are used in this context. Of course,
each event can become a brand-related event through
sponsorship, but here we mean events that are initially not
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directly related to a brand. For example, Volkswagen posted a
video showing VW Golfs playing soccer in the national colors
of Germany and Argentina celebrating the win of the FIFA
World Cup of the German national team. The video was
published right after the end of the match. This is an interesting
approach to benefit from the attention of that event without
being an official sponsor and having paid for media coverage.
Another post by Volkswagen celebrates the Independence Day
in the US by publishing a photo of the VW Beetle in a scene
with fireworks and the words: Independence is something we
love to celebrate. This post attracts the attention of people
celebrating the Independence Day even if they might not be
directly interested in the Volkswagen brand at this moment.
Ford published posts about Mother’s Day and Father’s Day
through telling emotional stories and linking it with the car
industry. On Father’s Day, for instance, they published a video
telling the story of a father trying to comfort the daughter
because of failing the driver’s test a second time (see Figure
5). Second, brands also align their posts according to brand-
related events such as anniversaries. Ford, for example,
published posts to celebrate the anniversaries of the first ever
sold Ford Model A or the Ford Mustang (see also Figure 2).
Moreover, Honda posted content about sports events like
Honda winning the Indianapolis 500, which is a very famous
car race in the US. Furthermore, Volkswagen announced their
participation in the Global Rallycross in Las Vegas. The
Rallycross is a rally car race in Las Vegas sponsored by Red
Bull.
Figure 5: Ford celebrating Father’s Day
Pattern 5: CAMPAIGN
The last identified pattern is based on the fact that brands
implement their social media posts in a cross-media marketing
campaign. In this case, a SNS post represents an element of a
larger campaign, which often includes television, newspaper,
radio, internet or other advertising activities. The mere-
exposure effect gives one explanation in regard to the positive
impact of this approach. Accordingly, repeated exposure of a
communication message to an audience induces a more
positive attitude towards this message (Zajonc, 1968). This
positive attitude might lead to a higher likelihood of user
engagement with the initial social media post. If a user has
already seen the campaign on other media channels, this can
lead to a higher likelihood of engagement with this social
media post.
For instance, BMW’s SSP concerning the new BMW i8
model (see Figure 6) was part of a much broader cross-media
product launch campaign. In addition to their social media
activities, the campaign included seven different print ads and
three TV spots shown worldwide on TV, in cinemas, and on
their website (BMW, 2014). Similarly, for the launch of the
2013 Honda Civic, the brand created a television ad and
additionally focused on a digital advertising campaign,
including two Facebook posts, which turned out to be highly
successful (Honda, 2013).
Figure 6: BMW i8 post as part of product launch campaign
Learning from the Best Four Cases
Our findings show that creating a SSP requires an appropriate
understanding of the media ecosystem in which the post is
situated. In order to better understand underlying mechanisms,
we further elaborate on four SSP in the following section.
Again, great emphasis was placed on a holistic explanation,
taking into consideration not only the post itself, but also its
online and offline context.
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Introduction of the new BMW i8
The first example and best-performing post in our sample in
terms of the number of likes is about the introduction of the
new BMW i8 hybrid car (see Figure 7). The post includes a
picture of the new car and the claim: Take part in a journey
from the impossible to the possible. Additionally, a link to a
video about the story behind the car is provided.
First of all, and as mentioned above, a cross-media product
launch campaign was rolled out in parallel to the social media
post. The marketing campaign started on 9th May 2014,
whereas the post was published on 13th May 2014. The first
German TV spot aired on 10th May 2014 and was repeated over
several weeks across the globe (BMW, 2014). During this
time, the audience was able to learn about the new car and to
discover the new technologies. Thereby, BMW was able to
increase the awareness and attention for their new car. The
campaign also included online advertising on influential
business, automotive and lifestyle websites. Advertisements in
print magazines and national daily newspapers had already
started earlier (late April), accompanied by billboard
advertising, building projections and video installations in
selected areas. An increased exposure of the BMW i8 created
not only familiarity and attention towards the product, but
created also a more positive attitude towards the product. A
possible explanation for this might be again the already
mentioned mere-exposure effect (Zajonc, 1968). Because the
BMW i8 was brand new at that time and emphasized high-
performance and future features of the car, the post also
corresponded to the wow effect pattern. The high degree of
novelty of the car added upon the attention to the social media
post. People who got in contact with this social media post by
BMW were thus more likely to engage because they either had
already seen content from the cross-media campaign or were
astonished about this so far unseen brand new product.
Figure 7: Introduction of the new BMW i8
Honda’s ‘Best Yourself campaign
The SSP that received second most (adjusted) likes in our
sample is a Honda post (see Figure 8). The post contains the
slogan Challenge yourself push yourself best yourself. At
first glance, the post and content seem to be very
inconspicuous. Nevertheless, it received a high level of user
engagement. Honda successfully achieved to set up a highly
emotional cross-media campaign for the launch of the new
product and the social media post as part of it. This approach
is aligned with the abovementioned campaign pattern.
Honda’s campaign called ‘Best Yourself was about one’s
motivation to achieve success through non-traditional paths.
The message of continuous improvement by celebrating
individuals’ achievements towards personal growth along the
campaign perfectly matched the millennial generation’s
mindset. The wish to belong to something special helped to
foster user engagement because people more easily immersed
in the campaign. The campaign further comprised a TV
commercial placed in the commercial break of the TV show
‘America’s Got Talent’, which fitted the idea of achievements
through continuous personal improvement.
Figure 8: Honda's Best Yourself campaign
Overall, Honda utilized various media channels for their
campaign, such as television, different social media channels
(e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube) and various
media partners such as Huffington Post, Complex Media
Network, and Ballislife.com. To further drive user
engagement, Honda partnered up with Nick Cannon as a
popular celebrity of the millennials. In line with the presented
co-branding pattern, this helps to increase the potential
audience and to leverage the large fan base of the celebrity
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(Honda, 2013). All in all, the post achieved to communicate a
strong and emotional message and successfully targeted the
right audience through the right channels while utilizing a co-
branding and campaign pattern.
Volkswagen’s post about the FIFA World Cup 2014
Volkswagen published by far the most successful post
concerning shares (see Figure 9). The Volkswagen post shows
a video of a soccer match between Volkswagen cars in the
German national colors and cars in the Argentinian national
colors. While in the video the German team scores a goal, the
text of the post states: ‘Now that’s the power of German
engineering. Congrats to #Germany, the new champions!.
Additionally, the post provides the link to a longer version on
Youtube. What has made the post extremely successful is its
timing. It was posted directly after the win of the world
championship of the German soccer national team on July 13th,
2014. Aligned with the discovered timing pattern, this post
tries to leverage the attention on this international sports event
for the Volkswagen brand. The marketing managers of
Volkswagen probably selected the (anticipated) win of the
German team due to the extensive media coverage of the game.
Figures show that roughly three billion people worldwide
watched at least one minute of one of the matches on TV,
whereas alone one billion people watched at least one minute
of the final (FIFA, 2015). With this post, Volkswagen
congratulated Germany for winning the soccer world
championship. Volkswagen expected that users might share
the post to celebrate the win with their team. Moreover,
Volkswagen as a German brand tried to link the success of the
German soccer national team with the German engineering
abilities in a creative way. All in all, this post is a vivid
example of how marketing managers can use media coverage
of specific events for their own purpose.
Figure 9: VW's post about the FIFA World Cup 2014
Toyota’s picture puzzle
Toyota published the most successful post regarding the
(adjusted) number of comments (see Figure 10). The post
showed a riddle with different sketches combined with letters
and words that have to be decoded to reveal a safe driving
advice. Furthermore, the post stated a clear call for action: Put
your detective skills to the test. Decode and find more safe
driving tips at [link]. The reason for the high amount of
comments seems intuitive because answers to solve the quiz
can only be placed in a comment. The fact that a direct call for
action leads to a higher level of user engagement regarding
comments is also supported by other research findings (Vries,
Gensler, & Leeflang, 2012). Moreover, the post contains
puzzling information that refers to the abovementioned
cognitive task pattern, which can make users curious about the
solution of this quiz. This curiosity may drive user engagement
even more. Moreover, due to the nontrivial challenge, users
might have different solutions, which lead to a discussion,
resulting in even more comments. Previous research shows
that high variance in comments provokes other users to
comment as well (Moe & Trusov, 2011; Schlosser, 2005; Vries
et al., 2012).
Figure 10: Toyota's picture puzzle
Implications
Due to the growing importance of social media and especially
SNS for marketing communication, scholars have put
increasing emphasis on the antecedents of communication
effectiveness. In this context, this article follows a unique
research approach. Instead of searching for antecedents of post
success in a large-scale sample, we have particularly focused
on SSP that have outperformed the majority of other posts,
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aiming to learn from these few success stories about the
underlying mechanisms.
Our research offers several contributions. First of all, the
findings are supposed to sensitize practitioners in regard to a
broader view on social media posts. The results suggest to look
beyond a social media post and to rather incorporate it into a
broader media ecosystem or into brand campaigns. Second, we
revealed communication patterns that SSP typically have in
common. These patterns can help marketing managers to
enhance the chances to replicate this success when planning
future social media campaigns. The five derived patterns can
inspire marketing managers in their daily work of designing
social media posts. Third, this study adds to the literature body
of social media research through discussing various factors
that make social media communication exceedingly successful
regarding likes, shares, and comments. Our research approach
also offers a new lens through which researchers can view on
social media messages. Thereby, we hope to encourage future
studies in this field.
The limitations of this article offer further research
directions. First, the findings of this study are derived from
case evidence from the automotive industry. Thus, the results
cannot simply be generalized across other industries. Further
research could examine the applicability of our patterns in
different industries. Second, this study focuses on the
description of recurring patterns of SSP. Although we have
relied on an empirical approach to generate our sample of SSP,
the derived success patterns have to be further empirically
validated. Future research could analyze underlying
mechanisms in more detail to foster a sound understanding of
the mode of action for each pattern.
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SUPER SUCCESSFUL POSTS ON SOCIAL MEDIA
PROC 16TH INT MARK TRENDS CONF
2017 | January 26-28, Madrid
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