“Engage and attract me, then I’ll share you”: an analysis of the impact of post category on viral marketing in a social networking site

Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of different types of content of viral marketing in a popular social networking site. Our research is founded on recent studies which categorize posts on Facebook. Design/methodology/approach: Data for 2583 posts in eight profiles of Brazilian beer brands were coded and analyzed. We used a regression model and Analysis of Variance to establish relationships among independent variables and a dependent variable. Findings: Two hypotheses were supported. There was a positive relationship between posts of the categories Fan and Promotion and Publicity and viral marketing. Posts of the categories Information and Pool did not have any significant effects, and confirmed previous studies which analyzed likes and comments as dependent variables. Originality/value: Previous studies using the platform did not categorize posts created by brand fans/followers. Our typology is a quantitative improvement in relation to studies with similar objectives. Hence, marketers involved with brand management on Facebook should publish posts which promote the brand and reproduce content generated by people engaged with it if they seek to increase the viralization capacity of such posts.

研究目的：本文旨在分析某热门社交网站中，不同类型内容对病毒式营销（viral marketing）效果的影响。本研究基于近期针对Facebook平台帖子的分类研究展开。
研究设计与方法：本研究对8个巴西啤酒品牌官方账号主页下的2583条帖子进行编码与分析。我们采用回归模型与方差分析，以明确自变量与因变量之间的关联关系。
研究结果：本研究验证了两项研究假设：粉丝类与推广宣传类帖子与病毒式营销呈显著正相关；而资讯类与投票类帖子则未表现出显著影响。该结果验证了此前以点赞数与评论数作为因变量的相关研究结论。
研究创新与价值：过往基于该平台的同类研究未对品牌粉丝或关注者发布的帖子进行分类。本研究提出的分类体系，相较于同类研究目标的既有研究实现了量化层面的优化。因此，若希望提升Facebook平台上品牌相关帖子的病毒传播能力，负责该平台品牌管理的营销人员应发布品牌推广类内容，并转发参与品牌互动的用户创作的相关内容。