Article Study 1: “Who ‘Likes’ You… and Why? A Typology of Facebook Fans
Wallace, E., Buil, I., de Chernatony, L., & Hogan, M. (2014). Who "likes" you… and
why? A typology of facebook fans. Journal of advertising research, 54(1), 92
109. doi: 10.2501/JAR-54-1-092-109
“Who ‘Likes’ You?” was an academic study that aimed to discover the
different types of brand engagement users (here dubbed “fans”) on Facebook. The
study took a marketing approach to discover different types of users and which ones
were most beneficial to company’s brand pages for overall marketing purposes. It
aimed to discover the relationship between brand loyalty and Facebook likes. The
study analyzed 438 participants and their actions on Facebook, typed them into four
different categories, and analyzed the extent to which each ‘fan’ type influenced the
market of the page they were interacting with. They found four major types: the
“fan”-atics, who engaged with the brand online due to strong affinity offline and
were influential in creating loyalty; the utilitarians, who only liked the page for
promotional offers or what the brand offered them; the self-expressives, who like
pages to appear more impressive to others and have little brand affiliation, and the
authentics, who like the page out of a true offline brand loyalty and word of mouth
reputation. The study ranked authentics as the most effects, followed by fanatics,
self-expressives and utlitarians. The results suggested that building rapport with
authentics and fanatics would be the most useful to brand building.
I found this study fascinating, because I have always had an aversion to giveaways and contests as a means of attracting likes to the page. This study showed the
types of people attracted by these methods, the utilitarians, often have no loyalty to
the brand and will leave the page once the promotion is done. To attract the most
loyal target audience, the authentics and fanatics, you need to offer them actual
content. For the internship with Mixed, this has taken the shape of our resume
evaluations. If people like our page, they get an offline reward- an evaluation. This
affirms the doubts of the authentics and gives the fanatics something to spread via
word of mouth. Ultimately, posting relevant content is the way to keep and engage
users and build brand loyalty, not a cheap contest.
Article Study 2: More Mutter About Clutter: Extending Empirical
Generalizations
Nelson-Field, K., Riebe, E., & Sharp, B. (2013). More mutter about clutter: Extending
empirical generalizations to facebook. Journal of advertising research, 53(2),
186-191. doi: 10.2501/JAR-53-2-186-191
“More Mutter” was a fascinating article. I had been reading recently in the
news about how paying for Facebook advertisements might not actually work.
“More Mutter” was a study that generalized the findings of clutter advertising to
Facebook specifics. The authors define clutter as “advertisements which have high
quantity, competitiveness, and intrusiveness.” Other studies have shown that
advertising clutter reduces the impact upon the target audience due to reduced
capacity and avoidance. The authors set out to discover if the same held true on
Facebook. The research method used everyday Facebook users and tested for
recognition and recollection of brand advertisements. They found that contrary to
other media, users remembered large brand advertisements in a cluttered
environment. However, they were less likely and in most cases did not recall
advertisements of brands unknown to them. The researchers concluded that
Facebook advertising is not worth the cost to small business owners.
This article was extremely applicable because we had been looking into
purchasing a side banner advertisement from Facebook for Mixed. However, we
were hesitant as to the extent to which an advertisement would be effective. This
study showed, that as long as Mixed is still growing as a small business, our money
may be better spent elsewhere than on purchasing an advertisement. Users who
were not familiar with Mixed, the target audience, would be unlikely to remember
the advertisement after visiting the page, making the venture ultimately not worth
the cost or the time.
Article Study 3: Why Your Brand Posts are Fading on Facebook
Delo, C. (2014). Why your brand posts are fading on facebook. Advertising age,
85(5), 6.
I was actually referred to this article by one of my advertising professors, and
decided to do some more research on my own. The article discussed at length the
organic reach of brand posts on Facebook, and why many of them were beginning to
fade from their target audience’s news feeds. The research proposed four major
reasons for the decline: an increase in the average number of friends per Facebook
user, the increase in the average number of pages liked per Facebook user, an
increased presence of news sites such as Buzzfeed, and the prevalence of paid
advertisements. The article suggested that in the face of these dilemmas, shareable
content is the most effective mode of advertising. Posts relevant only to the
company would be seen by very few users, and quickly get buried under paid
advertisements and other updates from pages. The only way to increase organic
reach is to make content that is appealing and shareable to the target audience, so
the circulation would mimic that of the news sites.
This was actually an issue I had been looking into. I noticed that no matter
what time of day I was posting our content, the organic reach was only about a third
of our original audience. It didn’t matter what I posted, whether it was a text or a
blog post, very few members of our target audience were seeing it and our quality,
hard-worked on posts were quickly fading. I decided to involve other employees at
the company. We worked to increase the quality of our content and make it more
interactive, so that users would want to share it and open it, rather than scroll past
it as just another post. Then, I alerted other Mixed employees every time we posted
a new blog post or link to a helpful site. On average, two to three different
employees would share the post per day. This circulation of different shares and
audiences ultimately made sure our unpaid for content was breaking through the
newsfeed barrier. After just a few weeks, I noticed our organic reach and post
engagement almost double.
Article Study 4: Facebook ads: What works, what doesn’t
Creamer, M. (2012). Facebook ads: What works, what doesn't. Advertising age,
83(20), 2-41.
This was an analytical study conducted off of findings released from
Facebook’s internal research on Internet advertising on the site. Facebook’s
measurement team took an in-depth analysis on different types of advertisements
on the site and their relative organic reach and engagement to glean what methods
were effective and which weren’t. They distilled six major categories, and then
asked marketers to rate what the categories deemed as effective advertisements.
Analyzing the numbers released by Facebook shows three main creative elements: a
visual focal point, clear brand representation, and a showcase of the brand
personality. The analysis showed that reward, or offering users something in return
for their engagement (whether that be content or a giveaway), was more effective in
the long term over visual noticeability.
I had to create an advertisement for our page on a giveaway promotion that
Mixed was doing. The promotion offered a free resume evaluation to anyone who
invited, and succeeded, in getting five people to like the page. After reading this
article, I had to make several edits. First of all, the main selling point in the ad was
the reward- a free resume evaluation. I highlighted this aspect by making that the
center and largest portion of the ad. This also fulfilled the requirement of a visual
focal point- zeroing the users focus on what was the most relevant to them. Clear
brand representation and brand personality went hand in hand. Mixed’s brand
personality is cheerful and bright. They are professional while making an emphasis
on getting to know each and every individual. This is accomplished through their
color scheme of black, red, and gray, as well as their X logo. I kept each of these
design elements to establish brand rapport and placed them on a white background
to avoid alienating viewers with too much noticeability. This article clearly defined
the design elements required for a successful Facebook advertisement, and the
resulting product turned out to be a success for the page.
Article Study 5: Beyond the “Like” Button: The Impact of Mere Virtual
Presence on Brand Evaluation
Naylor, R. W., Lamberton, C. P., & West, P. M. (2012). Beyond the "like" button: the
impact of mere virtual presence on brand evaluations and purchase
intentions in social media settings. Journal of marketing, 76(6), 105-120.
“Beyond the ‘Like’ Button” takes a look at one particular aspect of social
media marketing- direct engagement with users. They define this interaction as
“mere virtual presence,” (MVP) or the extent to which users are aware of other
users when interacting with the brand. The study exposed sets of social media users
to a control of normal exposure to MVP, and then subsequently decreased or
increased the exposure and gaged subsequent affiliation towards the brand. MVP
exposure in terms of Facebook and Twitter includes the access of information to the
fan base as well as individual mentions of users. The second portion of the study
contrasted these individual mentions vs. no interaction with users at all. The study
showed that it was good practice for rapport building to mention and interact with
the fan base if the company was small, had a target audience similar to the fan base,
or was competing with a larger entity.
This study directly applied to Mixed because they meet each of the three
qualifications to increase mere virtual presence with their target audience. A large
part of Mixed’s USP is the fact that they are small and personable, and that they take
the time to get to know each and every individual that employs their services. This
brand identity, coupled with the results of the study, made me suggest that Mixed
incorporate MVP more thoroughly in its social media. The largest way we did this
was through the use of “Testimonial Friday.” Each day of social media posts was
themed, typically Monday – Wednesday was interactive links pertaining to a talent
topic culminating in a blog post from Mixed on Thursday. Friday because testimony
day, where each week a different employer or employee’s experience with Mixed
was showcased. The post would include a short excerpt of their testimony, tag the
user if applicable, and then link back to the website. This allowed Mixed to increase
their direct interaction with their fan base and highlight the personal aspect of the
company to their potential fan base.
Article Study 6: Seeding Viral Content
Yuping, L. (2012). Seeding viral content: The role of message and network factors.
Journal of advertising research, 52(4), 465-478. doi: 10.2501/JAR-52-4-465478
The study looked at the use of Youtube as part of marketing campaigns and
how to most effectively utilize it. The authors proposed that the reasons most
analysis have failed is that the do not take into account the “seeding factor,” or how
the content is initially spread. To further test this hypothesis, the researchers
introduced the same marketing video into several different environments with
different groups of initial seeders. They also introduced videos with differing quality
(strong vs. weak brand presence) into environments with equal groups of seeders.
They found that quality mattered over quantity in both scenarios. In regards to
seeders, a few participants actively engaged in the brand and their communities
were more effective than a larger number of participants who shared with no
personal attachment. If the content of the video was short, direct, and relevant it
also experienced greater interaction and success than the alternative.
Sara Sherry, president and founder of Mixed, was recently featured in an
Alumnus Highlight by Grand Valley State University for her accomplishments and
work with individuals with employment barriers. The video presented a perfect
opportunity for a viral marketing, since Mixed had just launched an inclusive
program at the Kent County Jail System. We employed the quality over quantity
concept when sharing this video over social media. The video content, produced by
an outside entity, was already succinct and direct. The video was uploaded onto the
main Facebook and Twitter pages, tagging Sara Sherry directly. She then shared the
video herself, as did prominent employees within the company. Lastly, a few
individuals who had taken part in the employment seminars in the jail also shared it.
The overall number of “seeders” was only around 10, but it circulated more widely
after the initial seeding. We decided to go this route because personal connections
are what matter most at Mixed, and individuals who shared the video out of their
personal connection would have greater clout than those who had no personal
interaction.
Article Study 7: Blending mass self-communication
Heyman, R., & Pierson, J. (2013). Blending mass self-communication with
advertising in facebook and linked in: Challenges for social media and user
empowerment. International journal of media & cultural politics, 9(3), 229245. doi: 10.1386/macp.9.3.229_1
This study focused on Facebook and LinkedIn and the extent to which they
are effective venues for advertising. The authors analyzed both sites advertising
services, both generic, targeted, free and purchased. Each user on both sites gets
sorted by what is called the Personal Information Identity (PII). The PII allows the
sites to sort users into target groups and sell their collective interest in advertising
to various companies. The study showed that when groups were selected for
advertisements based upon their PII selections, the advertisements tended to be
more successful. Although users cannot control who their PII gets released to
initially, they can control the types of advertisements they see through a selection
process. For advertisers, PII is has proven to be a useful tool in selecting a target
audience from the vast array of social network users. Both Facebook and LinkedIn
offer paid advertisements that market directly to users with related PII.
Although I was hesitant to purchase a Facebook ad because of some recent
studies that doubted their effectiveness, my client really wanted to use the service.
However, when we were initially setting up the advertisement, the projected
audience was over 500,000 people. Because Mixed does not yet have the
infrastructure to sustain large amounts of customer traffic, they wished to limit
their intended audience. Through the services of PII, we were able to select users in
the greater Grand Rapids area aged 18-50 who were seeking employment. The PII
process of Facebook allowed us to simplify the selection of our target audience and
make sure that the advertisement was reaching who it needed to reach. Later in the
semester, we featured a resume evaluation contest for joining Mixed, which we
were able to send directly to college students and recent graduates through the PII
of LinkedIn. Both sites use of PII, in my experience, has been helpful and useful in
the process of creating social advertisements.
Article Study 8: Social Networking Sites and HR Decisions
Davison, H. K., Maraist, C. P., & Bing, M. N. (2011). Friend or foe? the promises and
pitfalls of using social networking sites for hr decisions. Journal of business &
psychology, 26(2), 153-159. doi: 10.1007/s10869-011-9215-8
This study discussed the evolving issue of social media networking sites in
the hiring process, particularly their use in Human Resource Departments. The
study cited an increased statistical usage of social networks for job postings and
reference checks. In some reported cases, individuals were let go from companies
for inappropriate content posted on their social media. The study suggested that
internet job postings recruit a larger number of qualified applicants, but that further
research would be needed to confirm the findings. It also called for qualifications on
the use of social media as an HR screening tool. They gathered in statistics from
surveys across the country and compiled it to look at social networking trends
within HR groups. They concluded that although there is not enough scientific and
statistical research to support its use, most HR departments are using social
networks for job postings and as a screening tool, and the practices are being met
with success.
This was doubly relevant to my internship, since Mixed is a Staffing and
Recruiting company. We have a job posting portion on our website to make
potential customers aware job offers, but we struggled to get the word out about
new postings. Eventually, we synced the job offer portion of our website with our
networks including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn so that every time a new job
offer was posted it was also linked to all three networks. The topic of social media
use in HR screenings was relevant to me as I wrote the weekly blogs. A lot of
potential job seekers are unaware of the impact their social media usage could have
on their future employment. This study showed a definitive link between the two,
although the extent to which they are linked is relatively unknown. Through further
research, I was able to stress the importance of keeping public social networks
professional and the impact it could have on future employment. Although the study
called for further research, I found both points of the social network use in HR
departments to be both true and relevant to today’s market.
Article Study 9: Do Ads Work on Social Networks?
Taylor, D. G., Lewin, J. E., & Strutton, D. (2011). Friends, fans, and followers: Do ads
work on social networks?. Journal of advertising research, 51(1), 258-275.
The article took an in-depth look at the use of advertising in social media and
attempted to discover which methods were most effective in reaching target
audiences. Their statistical methods aimed to look at which advertising factors
promoted ads and which factors inhibited them. The study sorted participants
based upon gender, age, and average social media use and then measured their
affinity towards various types of social media on a 1-5 numerical scale. From that
base, a variety of social media advertisements were introduced with different
factors and user’s affinity towards them was measured. The results showed that
repeated advertisements or ads with structural motivations (pushes to click outside
the site or connections based off emotions) had little to negative effects. The factors
that provided the most positive response from users were advertisements that had
social value, inherent entertainment, or informational value. The content of pages
then, is more engaging with users under these conditions.
While created advertisements and posts for the Mixed Facebook and Twitter
pages, I tried to follow these basic constructs. The study showed that users
responded negatively towards direct marketing and repetitiveness. Based off of this,
I made the decision to only post once a day. I also wanted to try to make the posts
entertaining or informational. People generally won’t pay attention to something if
it holds no value for them. The trick was creating something still related to Mixed
that would draw people in. We did this through blogs and surveys. The issue of job
searching is one that affects many users today in the current economic climate, so
providing users with the answers to timely, relevant questions was crucial. We also
offered resume evaluations and the opportunity to speak directly and train with a
recruiter. Our posts had little to no direct marketing about Mixed, but rather focused
on bringing users content and advertising that offered something to them, and I
found there to be a lot of interaction in that area.
Article Study 10: The Power of “Like”
Lipsman, A., Mud, G., Rich, M., & Bruich, S. (2012). The power of "like": How brands
reach (and influence) fans through social-media marketing. Journal of
advertising research, 52(1), 40-52. doi: 10.2501/JAR-52-1-040-052
This article compiled several research reports on social media
advertisements and brand pages from across the country. In particular, it illustrated
the findings by focusing on three social media advertising giants: Starbucks,
Southwest Airlines, and Bing. They exclusively focused on Facebook advertisements.
First of all, they demonstrated how brand posts can have a reach beyond the
number of likes or engagement numbers through extended networks of friends,
posting in high traffic time constraints, and reach analysis. That is to say, you can
extend the organic reach of posts through using “friends of friends.” When users tag
one another in comments or share posts, the engagement of posts can reach 34
more people per average user. This allows brands to extend beyond their
geographic and informational borders, giving their posts a greater reach than the
“like” number would suggest. Instead of focusing on raw counts, brands that focus
on extended outreach have a potential to reach an almost unlimited audience.
In the beginning of my work with Mixed, I had a very hard time getting our
posts to reach a large audience. Typically, they were only reaching around a third of
our total “like” count, and changing the content or the time that it was posted was
not doing anything to change the reach. After doing some research, I decided to
employ some nontraditional strategies. When posting testimonies from customers, I
attempted to tag them in the post if possible. This allowed the post to reach the
user’s friend group beyond the ones that liked the page. We also tried to tag
employees in photos posted of the various workshops hosted by Mixed, further
extending their reach. Beyond merely tagging, I also encouraged other employees to
share the blog posts. All of these factors widened our organic circle, allowing us to
reach far beyond what our “like” count told us we were reaching. As the study
suggested, engagement numbers often do not accurately represent the reach of
posts, and engaging users directly has unlimited potential in extending the target
audience.
Article Study 11: Using Structural Cues to Guide Readers on the Internet
Spyridakis, J. H., Mobrand, K. A., Cuddihy, E., & Wei, C. Y. (2007). Using structural
cues to guide readers on the internet. Information design journal, 15(3), 242259.
This article proposes that most of the problems with websites today come
from their readability. Websites with great content can often be overlooked if the
navigation is not clear or the structure of information does not lend itself easily to
reading comprehension. The first portion of the study looked at the wording of
navigational links by asking users to complete the same task on the same website
with different navigational descriptions. The second portion followed the same
premise as the first, this time looking at the wording of hyperlink text and seeing
which methods encouraged greater interaction with the links. The last portion
attempted to discover how much of an impact text previews had on the clarity of
navigation menus. Overall, the results showed that structural clarity was key in
getting users to interact and stay on the website. This involves clear and succinct
navigational links, creative and intriguing hyperlink labels, and the inclusion of text
previews in navigational menus.
When I first got access to the Mixed website, it was a basic framework. There
was content and navigational structure present, but overall it was just content on
various pages. To begin, I put sub-menus on the navigation. Before I did this, it was
hard to find subpages outside of directly searching for them. This made the
navigation clearer, and they were put under appropriate headings (i.e. job postings
under the jobs heading). I also added a preview of our three main pages- about, blog,
and contact- to the main home page. Each of these page previews had a short, three
sentence description about the page. To begin with, I was not very skilled at
integrating hyerlinks into the blog text. I would just have a generic “read more.”
However, through study and experimentation, I started trying to work them in
directly through the text, which proved to be much more effective and interesting. I
also tried to make effective use of chunking text- that is making the paragraphs
short to increase the ease of scanning. This helps readers not get bored scrolling
through large amounts of information, and increases the white space on web pages,
directing your eyes where they are supposed to go.
Article Study 12: Guidelines for Web Design
Williams, T. R. (2000). Guidelines for designing and evaluating the display of
information on the web. Technical communication, 47(3),
This article was not based off of a study, but is rather a comphrensive list of
guidelines to go by when creating a website’s design and content compiled by an
associate professor of communication technology at the University of Washington. I
am going to draw out several of his tips and show how they were helpful to me.

Use pictures to enhance the text and create white space- When I first got
access to the Mixed website, there were no pictures present at all. The pages
were very cold, with black and gray text. Through a process of design and
feedback, we slowly incorporated photo and video throughout the pages to
give the site a warmer feel.

Keep line and paragraph lengths short- Studies show that readers will often
just skim or skip an entire paragraph that is long. In my initial redesign of the
Mixed website, I went through and copy edited all of the content, including
chunking the content to increase white space and readability.

Avoid the overuse of bold and italics-This was actually a huge problem. My
client thought that using bold and italic text gave the site personality, and
initially did not want to change it, while I thought it looked unprofessional.
Eventually, we compromised, using bold and italic text for headers and
keeping them out of the main body of text.

Have a unified design- Because Mixed had had a couple of interns before me,
all of the pages were not consistent. This was clearly evident in the job
postings portion. Different employees would upload different jobs, resulting
in a wide variety of formats. I talked with my client to figure out which one
they liked the best, and then made it uniform throughout the pages.

Make the text readable- This was done through a variety of different ways.
First, all of the headers throughout the site were made consistently bold and
red. Next, the use of bulleted lists was implemented to break up the text
more. We also incorporated pictures and video, all of which helped to make
the text more readable.

Have a united format throughout the site- Because a lot of the site was
designed by different people, there tended to be a lot of different design
elements. Together with my client I picked out a basic color structure- black,
red, and gray and implemented it throughout the site, along with the
company logo.