Nicole Goring and Dr. Steven Thomsen, Communications

College students in the United States and New Zealand were surveyed about their Facebook usage patterns, attitudes toward businesses’ pages on Facebook, and factors that could motivate them to join a business’s Facebook page. Several studies have researched businesses’ perspectives on using social media to reach their audiences, but substantial research has not been conducted to investigate social media users’ perspectives on businesses’ uses of social media. This study attempts to address this gap in the research on businesses’ uses of social media, using Facebook as the social media medium, and also discuss implications for future research. Significant findings of this study include incentives that businesses can use to motivate audiences to join their Facebook Pages.

Data were collected from 532 young adults (ages 18 to 25) living in both the United States and New Zealand. A survey was administered via the Internet (Qualtrics) to students at a large university in the western US and to students at a technology institute in New Zealand (the principal investigator was completing a study abroad program in New Zealand at the time and was provided email addresses for students by the sponsoring institution). US students were recruited through announcements made by professors in general education courses. New Zealand students received an email with a link to the survey from their university administration.

Of the 532 participants surveyed 517 (97 percent) had a Facebook account. Of those participants that had a Facebook account, 358 (71 percent) had been invited by a business to join its Facebook page. Of the 358 participants who had received invitations, 211 (42 percent) had accepted at least one invitation. Slightly more than 39 percent (n = 207) of the Facebook users surveyed are currently members of one or more business Facebook page.

When asked how frequently users access business “Facebook Pages” when logged in to Facebook, 316 (65 percent) users responded that they never access business Facebook Pages, 143 (30 percent) responded that they rarely visit business pages, 25 (5 percent) sometimes visit business pages, 2 (.4 percent) often visit pages, and 2 (.4 percent) almost always visits business pages when logged in to Facebook.

Attitudes toward “Facebook Pages.” One of the goals of this study was to assess users’ attitudes toward businesses that contact them via Facebook. The participants’ overall attitudes were slightly negative, with most respondents indicating they disagreed with the statements. Only two statements, “I would purchase a product from a company I learned about on Facebook Pages,” (M = 2.47, SD = .98) and “I would join a business’s Facebook page if recommended by a friend,” (M= 2.56, SD = 1.02), approached neutral opinions. Finally, our respondents tended to agree with the statement, “I wish I didn’t receive invitations to become a fan of businesses’ Facebook Pages,” (M = 3.89, SD = 1.26), again indicating an overall negative attitude.

Motivations for use. Next we were interested in what factors might motivate an individual to accept an invitation to become a fan on “Facebook Pages.” The three most important factors included opportunities for discounts (M = 3.25, SD = 1.39), interest in the business (M = 3.07, SD = 1.25), and the opportunity to receive special offers (M = 3.04, SD = 1.27). We should note here that the mean scores indicate that these factors were generally important to our participants, while all other factors were either of little or no importance. In fact, the two least important factors were access to games (M = 1.75, SD = .96) and the opportunity to give feedback (M = 2.06, SD = 1.02).

As suspected, nearly all of the college-aged survey participants (97 percent) had a Facebook account. More than 70 percent of users had received invitations from businesses to join a Facebook page, and 42 percent of those invited had chosen to join a business’s Facebook page. Although a fairly large percentage of Facebook users are joining businesses’ “Facebook Pages,” when invited, responses measuring their uses of Facebook, how often they access business “Facebook Pages” when logged in to Facebook, and their interactions with businesses’ “Facebook Pages” suggest that many of the fans of Facebook Pages do not see value in the business pages they join.

There are two possible explanations for the apparent inconsistency in the fact that our subjects frequently became fans of business pages, despite having little to no interaction with them, but they have overall negative attitudes toward business Facebook pages. One possibility is that users of Facebook join business pages without discrimination, because accepting invitations is a social courtesy. In society we are taught to accept invitations and so we do, particularly invitations that do not require any action on our part. The second possibility is that users are generally interested in or curious about the business when they receive the invitation but are given no incentive to visit the Facebook page or find no value should they take the initiative to visit the page.

Regardless of which explanation more accurately resembles reality, the bottom line is businesses need to create value on their Facebook pages to drive their fans to their space for Facebook to be an effective tool in building positive relationships between the business and its clients. More importantly, businesses must recognize that men and women experience and use “Facebook Pages” differently.

In summary, our findings indicate that businesses might find more success targeting males than females on Facebook, but regardless of their target audience, businesses that decide to use Facebook to reach their audiences need to make sure they create value on their Facebook Pages rather than simply using it as a medium to push messages. Unlike television advertisements or other media, where push marketing is the only option, Facebook provides the unique opportunity for interactive communication between businesses and their clients. Businesses that invest the time to research their Facebook audiences and learn how to create value for them will be more likely to have fans that actually visit the business’s page and interact with the business through Facebook.