Top Global Firms’ Use of Brand Profile Pages on SNS for Marketing Communication

Abstract

The present study employs content analysis to investigate how top global, Australian, Japanese, Spanish, Swiss, and Taiwanese businesses use brand profile pages on Facebook as their online marketing communication tool. Differences in the use of brand profile pages across countries and across industries are also examined. Overall, the results indicated that businesses with product brands were more likely to have profile pages on Facebook than their service counterparts. However, the practices of businesses with product brands and service brands on Facebook were found to be largely indifferent. Moreover, several tools which have the potential to be valuable resources to obtain feedback from consumers, such as polls and discussions, were found to be underutilized. Another interesting finding is that there was an association between businesses' use of brand profile pages and brand value. Several implications and future research opportunities are discussed.