Relationship Between Companies and the Public on Facebook: The Portuguese and the Brazilian Context

Abstract

This study analyzes how companies use Facebook to facilitate discussions with the public in two countries, Portugal and Brazil, through an exploratory content analysis of corporate Facebook pages. Overall, companies in both countries tend to recognize the relevance of Facebook in relationship development and therefore they use online strategies. Nevertheless, Portuguese companies are ahead of the Brazilian in providing calendars of events and partnerships with blogs/giveaways. They also tend to include more links to media reports. Compared to the Portuguese, the Brazilian public enjoys posting publications that express their feelings and/or emotions more. The article also discusses the implications of corporate relationship management practice.

Analysing Consumer-Brand Engagement Through Appreciative Listening on Social Network Platforms

“…Social network platforms are another paradigm that need to be considered in this equation. Thanks to this phenomenon, the communication model became multidimensional, allowing interactions in several ways, including consumer-to-business (Loureiro & Gomes, 2016). In this sense, this research is mainly focused on distinct concepts, as illustrated in Figure 1.…”

Exploring How Brands Create and Maintain Online Relationships Through Their Websites, Facebook and Instagram Brand Pages

“…Including this two-way form of communication is crucial to "understand how organizations can build relationships that serve both organizational and public interests" (Kent & Taylor, 2002: 21), thus several studies use dialogic communication to investigate the influence of online strategies for relationship building (Loureiro & Gomes, 2016). Three crucial strategies have been used in numerous studies (Waters et al, 2009;Loureiro & Gomes, 2016;Men & Tsai, 2012) to build and maintain relationships online: disclosure or openness, information dissemination, and interactivity and involvement. First, disclosure or openness refers to the companies" willingness to be transparent in their online communication activities.…”

“…Organizations should use hyperlinks connected to their websites and use logos and visual cues to enhance brand recognition. Information dissemination concerns posting photos and videos, announcements about products, as well as answering questions to address stakeholders" needs, concerns and interests (Men & Tsai, 2012;Loureiro & Gomes, 2016). Posting links to external news content related to the company and its business and including press releases and campaign summaries can maximize the impact of a company"s online presence (Waters et al, 2009).…”

“…Finally, interactivity and involvement can be seen as the most important strategy, out of the three, since it is essential to foster relationships with the public and represents one of the main advantages of using different social media platforms (Haigh, 2014). This strategy is often analysed as a whole, with no distinction between the two terms (Men & Tsai, 2012;Loureiro & Gomes, 2016) however, interactivity can be analysed separately from involvement according to research done by Haigh (2014). Involvement regards connecting with consumers.…”

Fashion Brands Communicating and Interacting in Instagram: A Netnography Approach

“…Customers are also more active in trying to get information and so brands tend to update news and launch new products more often. That can provide shared values leading to a positive impact on trust and an opportunity for organizations to improve customer relationships (Nicky, 2014;Loureiro, Pires, & Kaufmann, 2015;Loureiro & Gomes, 2016). In this vein, the current study aims to analyze and compare how fashion brands of different categorization communicate in Instagram.…”