Effectiveness of Online Video Marketing on Facebook Using Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) Model

Abstract

The advancements in technology and high-speed networks give advantages for entrepreneurs to promote their products and services in various forms of posting through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many more. The effectiveness of the video posting in terms of the virality of the video, the time the video reaches the maximum number of viewers and the flow of video spread are very important inputs for the marketers. Therefore, this preliminary study was designed to differentiate the effectiveness of two selected video posting on Facebook promoting two different popular products among women: shawls and slimming product. Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) models with demography and without demography was used in analysing the data since the nature of the dissemination of the video is similar to the spread of virus. The variables used in the analysis were the number of Facebook users who exposed to the video (Susceptible), received and shared the video (Infected) and stop sharing the video (Recovered). The finding shows the video promoting the shawl is more viral (R0Â > 1) as compared to the video promoting the slimming product (R0 < 1) based on both SIR Model. Although the earliest number of users who received the shawl video was lower but the number of users who received and shared that videos increased tremendously until it reached the maximum number of 19.6 million viewers in 2 days and after that the number was slowly decreased. For slimming product, it started with higher number of viewers, but reached the maximum number of viewers of 10.3 million in 8 days and later the number was gradually decreased. Further study should be done because there are a lot of possibilities or factors that contribute to these findings.