Social Media Usage Patterns of Turkish Maritime Businesses: A study on Facebook

Abstract

Social media has been widely used by businesses nowadays. Although in B2B industry, social media marketing isn't grown up as fast as it was in B2C market, many businesses begun to develop social media strategies and reach to new and existing corporate customers via social media recently. In this study, the main purpose is to examine social media usage patterns of Turkish maritime transportation companies through Facebook. In order to identify the social media usage habits of Turkish maritime transportation companies an exploratory study was conducted. In the period between January-November 2018, the maritime companies existing in Facebook are analyzed with a content analysis in terms of contents of the posts and stakeholder engagement levels. The findings show that posts on corporate image and special days are highly re-shared and taken positive reactions by followers. At the end of the study, suggestions for practitioners and direction for further studies are presented.