Social media marketing content strategy: A comprehensive framework and empirically supported guidelines for brand posts on Facebook pages

Despite all the marketing power social media marketing has, a major challenge it faces is how to create meaningful content that ignites a spark with audiences. The purpose of this research is to examine in what way brands can produce compelling social media content to engage and connect with target audiences. Eighteen brand Facebook Pages from nine major industries were reviewed to identify characteristics of content associated with higher levels of user engagement. Results show that multimedia content, transformational appeal, low levels of interactivity, and endorser type influence user engagement with brand posts on Facebook. Posts made on weekdays demonstrate higher levels of positive reactions than posts made during the weekends. In addition, consumer engagement is higher for service- (vs. product-based) Facebook brand posts. Furthermore, the length of the message proved to play a key role in prompting users to share a social media post, in that longer posts were more likely to be shared than shorter ones.