Influence of Brand Activities through Social Media on Consumer Awareness

Abstract

Due to its unique characteristics, digital marketing has become increasingly popular worldwide. The process has been made easier by digitalization, and social media channels have substantially increased the potential to enhance brand awareness. This plays a critical role in a brand’s position in the minds of consumers and is one of the most crucial stages of the Hierarchy Effects Model. Effective brand awareness is the starting point, and without it, it is impossible to improve a brand’s reputation or increase sales volume. Brand awareness is divided into “top of mind,” “unaided,” and “aided” conditions. Social media platforms, especially Facebook, offer specific campaign goals that are a possible way to improve brand awareness among customers and enhance the brand’s position in their consciousness. These campaigns provide companies with a particular metric, which is the estimated ad recall lift rate. This metric enables companies to understand how many people read the advertisement and how many of them will remember what they have read. However, the metric is quite general and does not take into account the various stages of brand awareness. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate how much the advertisement improves brand awareness and leads to purchases. It is also crucial to understand the importance of the frequency of the same campaigns on Facebook. This article aims to investigate the level of influence of brand activities through Facebook on consumers’ awareness and to what extent the platform has contributed to the process. Structured questionnaires were distributed to 54 respondents in Georgia to analyze their behavior and evaluate whether frequent activities on Facebook improved the position of the brand in consumers’ awareness. According to the results, frequent advertisements and brand activities have a considerable influence on consumers’ awareness, and it can be said that such activities directly provide the possibility of “unaided” brand awareness. However, it is essential to pay close attention to post impressions. The same activities on the same day have the potential to bring substantial negative consequences. Brands are recommended to deliver the same ads to the same consumers a maximum of three times per day to avoid negative consequences and snubs from consumers.