How to grow brand post engagement on Facebook and Twitter for airlines? An empirical investigation of design and content factors

Abstract

Airlines are increasingly using social media for initiating and sustaining consumer brand engagement through interaction and sharing. This study introduces a conceptual model on brand post engagement on social media and contributes to extant knowledge on the effectiveness of the determinants of such engagement in the airline industry. Facebook brand posts of a major Nordic airline published between 2011 and 2015 (242 posts), and Twitter brand posts from 2012 to 2016 (143 tweets), were collected, categorized and analyzed based on their design and content. Our models explain 52 and 58 percent of the variance in likes for Facebook and Twitter respectively. Our models also show strong results for shares/retweets and explain 42 and 53 percent for Facebook and Twitter, respectively. Moreover, the results show that an “entertaining” content is a key determinant of consumer brand post engagement on both social media platforms. The study points out the distinction between consumer brand post engagement on two of the biggest social media platforms and thus, provides a guide for the design and content of messages that could be used by airlines in building consumer engagement on Facebook and Twitter.