What works in Facebook? Content Versus Relational Communication: A Study of Their Efficiency

Developments in the Internet over the last few decades years have led to changes in the role played by consumers vis-à-vis their exposure to communications. Despite the widespread inclusion of social networks by organizations, many of these are failing to taking full advantage of the opportunities afforded by these new relational instruments. Based on an international sample of fans pages in Facebook, we describe the strategies implemented developed and we conduct an empirical measure of their efficiency through a series of the Key Performance Indicators commonly used by online marketing practitioners. The results provide the main conclusions both for the theory, which remains in its infancy regarding the study and understanding of communication efficiency in social networks, as well as for business practice in the area of content management and relations management strategies.