The Relationship between Consumer Characteristics and Social Media Marketing Content Regarding Organic Vegetable Products: Evidence from Facebook Users in Bangkok, Thailand

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the characteristics of organic vegetable consumers and social media marketing content. By utilizing a survey research method, we collected data from 400 organic product consumers that are clients of the big four retailers in Bangkok, Thailand: Big C, Tesco Lotus, Macro, and Foodland. The chi-squared tests revealed that gender and occupation were not related to the consumers’ opinion of the contents on the companies’ Facebook pages, while the consumers’ favorite shopping places, income, age, and levels of education were. Consumers at Big C paid more attention to five out of the six contents, whilst consumers that had higher income tended to pay more attention to organic certification. Older consumers focused on sources of organic production, while consumers that had a higher educational level paid more attention to infographic animation. The current study contributes to a customer-initiated contact (CIC) communications perspective by providing a deeper understanding of the relationship between consumer characteristics (i.e., income level, favorite shopping places, gender, age, educational level, and occupation) and the perceived marketing contents of a company’s Facebook page. Clearly, these findings are useful for effectively creating marketing content on Facebook in order to appropriately attract organic vegetable consumers.