| Social networks have evolved from providing a platform to connect individuals to incorporating an opportunity for marketers to reach consumers and promote products and services. For many marketers, understanding the behaviors of users as they continually engaged with Facebook remained an evolving process. Social media marketing managers have investigated the behaviors of users to leverage advertisements. Thus, the problem to be addressed in this study was that marketers lacked an understanding of the characteristics of social indexing; specifically, marketers did not understand why users select the like button on brand advertisements on Facebook. This qualitative single case study developed a better understanding of why users select the like button on brand advertisements on Facebook. Study participants were recruited for voluntary participation from Facebook. Snowball sampling was used to recruit 20 participants with whom semi-structured phone interviews were conducted. Participants were asked about their attention to Facebook advertisements and the importance of brand advertisements. Data was collected, coded using a line-by-line format, and the coded data was analyzed and interpreted. Seven major themes emerged from the analysis: (a) brand familiarity, (b) product selection, (c) brand popularity, (d) brand loyalty, (e) brand knowledge, (f) personal preference, and (g) personal interest. Thus, user's experiences, brand loyalty, and sharing behaviors were considered as liking actions. Additionally, researchers should investigate a population of college students, acceptance of advertisements on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, a quantitative study to generalize findings, and the reason users select one reaction button over another. |
