TY - JOUR
T1 - Sparking conversations on Facebook brand pages
T2 - Investigating fans' reactions to rhetorical brand posts
AU - van Hooijdonk, Charlotte
AU - van Charldorp, T.
PY - 2019/10/1
Y1 - 2019/10/1
N2 - On Facebook brands create pages to facilitate interaction with their (potential) customers, or fans. Brands publish content on these pages which often contain rhetorical figures. Facebook's technological affordances allow fans to respond to these posts leading to multiple participation framework levels that were initiated and can be seen by the brand, but may – at some point – no longer involve the brand. In this study, we uncovered how brands initiate interaction by posting content in an artfully divergent way by collecting 62 Dutch Facebook posts from 12 brands and fans' reactions they evoked. Using a mixed-methods approach, the posts' rhetorical figures and how fans responded to them were analyzed. The results showed that brands' posts often contain a deviation in meaning which enabled fans to respond in various ways: they responded to the actions posts generated, such as answering questions, but also responded by evaluating the brands. Despite the post's rhetorical type (trope or scheme), format (visual, verbal, or verbo-pictorial), or relevant next action projected, rhetorical posts on brand pages secure responses and thus participation from fans.
AB - On Facebook brands create pages to facilitate interaction with their (potential) customers, or fans. Brands publish content on these pages which often contain rhetorical figures. Facebook's technological affordances allow fans to respond to these posts leading to multiple participation framework levels that were initiated and can be seen by the brand, but may – at some point – no longer involve the brand. In this study, we uncovered how brands initiate interaction by posting content in an artfully divergent way by collecting 62 Dutch Facebook posts from 12 brands and fans' reactions they evoked. Using a mixed-methods approach, the posts' rhetorical figures and how fans responded to them were analyzed. The results showed that brands' posts often contain a deviation in meaning which enabled fans to respond in various ways: they responded to the actions posts generated, such as answering questions, but also responded by evaluating the brands. Despite the post's rhetorical type (trope or scheme), format (visual, verbal, or verbo-pictorial), or relevant next action projected, rhetorical posts on brand pages secure responses and thus participation from fans.
KW - Brands
KW - Digital conversation analysis
KW - Facebook
KW - Rhetorical figures
KW - Technological affordances
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85070253720&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85070253720&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.pragma.2019.07.013
DO - 10.1016/j.pragma.2019.07.013
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85070253720
SN - 0378-2166
VL - 151
SP - 30
EP - 44
JO - Journal of Pragmatics
JF - Journal of Pragmatics
ER -