Greek Food Manufacturing Firms’ Social Media Efforts: Evidence from Facebook

Abstract

The objective of this study is to examine which are the main firms' social media efforts that influence consumer behaviour using data from Greek food manufacturing firms. We use as indicators of Facebook efforts three variables -intensity, richness, and responsiveness. Posts are also categorized according to their nature (photos, videos, links and texts). The sample is divided into different groups in terms of the industry that firms belong, in order to investigate if there significant differences between the groups. In order to achieve the above research aims, we use data from Facebook pages of 70 firms over March-June 2014 period. Our results show that Greek food manufacturing firms that are involved with social media, adopted successfully new trends give efforts into providing rich information through Facebook and actively responding to consumers' messages.

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“…Nevertheless, the sample size was still substantial enough to make statements about the general relationships between the examined variables. Furthermore, this distorted distribution towards photo posts has been observed in other scholarly studies (Aspasia & Ourania, 2015;Basoglu, 2017). Lim, Hwang, Kim, and Biocca (2015), who analyzed realtime backchannel communication on social media sites during the airing of various television programs, emphasized the importance of future research studying direct measures from social channels instead of a survey design similar to the one utilized in their study.…”

“…It is important to note that the study of Dennis and Kin-ney (1998) along with most other studies (El-Shinnawy & Markus, 1997;Kinney & Watson, 1992;Valacich, Mennecke, Wachter, & Wheeler, 1994) which discon irmed or only partially supported the MRT, were all conducted in the 1990s. These older studies represent a strong contrast to most of the recently published studies which conirm the MRT (Aspasia & Ourania, 2015;Coelho et al, 2016;Coursaris, Van Osch, Balogh, & Quilliam, 2014;Cvijikj, Spiegler, & Michahelles, 2011;Kim, Spiller, & Hettche, 2015;Tafesse, 2015;Sabate, Berbegal-Mirabent, Cañabate, & Lebherz, 2014). Many studies were conducted to compare media richness across different media.…”

“…Their research focus makes this study especially interesting since this study will examine Facebook, which is mainly driven by people who belong to Generation Y. Aspasia and Ourania (2015) investigated the social media interactions of Greek food manufacturing irms with their audiences on Facebook, speci ically focusing on media richness, intensity, and responsiveness. In a descriptive analysis, they investigated whether the Greek food manufacturers were following the trends of contemporary consumer demands (Aspasia & Ourania, 2015).…”

“…Aspasia and Ourania (2015) investigated the social media interactions of Greek food manufacturing irms with their audiences on Facebook, speci ically focusing on media richness, intensity, and responsiveness. In a descriptive analysis, they investigated whether the Greek food manufacturers were following the trends of contemporary consumer demands (Aspasia & Ourania, 2015). Kang, Tang, and Fiore (2014) also reviewed restaurants and their Facebook pages online.…”

“…The MRT was based on traditional communication media such as newspapers, books, magazines, television, and radio (Daft & Lengel, 1986;El Den, Adikhari, & Adikhari, 2017). Over the last decade, the body of literature investigating social media phenomena grew proportionally with the broad diffusion and adoption of social media usage among the population (Aspasia & Ourania, 2015;Tafesse, 2015). Thus, this paper continues a thread of research which investigates the application of the MRT to social media engagement.…”