The Experimental Study On the Effectiveness of Social Media Ad Campaign: Like, Comment, Share

The popularity of social media outlets has forced us to inquire about marketing effectiveness in any area of the industry. Social media has rapidly risen in popularity as a new advertising platform that allows users to connect with one another and engage with brands. This research has attempted to explore the attitude of people over the advertisements in what formats most people prefer to like, comment or share. We focus top trended social media sites Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to demonstrate the consumer engagement on advertisements placed on these sites. This research has identified the factors which influence the users to keep an eye out on advertisements that make them want to continue watch-ing it as they spend their daily time on these social media websites and apps. To determine what makes Ads and online marketing campaigns successful we used variables such as Vividness, Content of Posts, Position of Posts, Scheduling and Call to Action. It was conducted on 300 respondents. We used the questionnaire to collect the data and used a semantic differential scale. We questioned about the ads to respondents which were based on our variables. Results showed that our research is decisive but the variable call to action has an insignificant effect and other variables such as vividness, the position of post, the content of the post, schedule have a significant relation with customer engagement.


INTRODUCTION
Social commerce comprises of social media and commercial activities. It is a sub-set of E-commerce. Since the inception of the social media outburst, many organizations have acknowledged its ability to engage the consumers in an effective manner. More than a few organizations have changed their business models and realigned themselves as social-media friendly organizations and have initiated social media promotion (Chi, 2011). The effectiveness of social media campaigning lies in the fact that it provides an exceptional behaviour response tracking (Rodger & Thorson, 2000). Online presence for organizations has also proven to build a prominent brand image. According to a report by Briggs and Hollis (1997), the social networking websites also have a tendency of providing valuable feedback that can allow organizations to actively improve their services (Karson et al.,2006). Companies establish Facebook pages to disseminate information regarding their products and services to the potential and actual customers. Brand pages allow interaction between enterprises, celebrities and community members. 20 million people "Like" Facebook brand pages every day (Luarn, Lin, and Chiu, 2015).
The focus of this study would not be to prove that social media marketing is effective, as it is a prerequisite for this study. This research would actually focus on the components that make any social media marketing campaign effective. Engagement during the campaign in the form of approval, discussion and investment directly contribute to effectiveness as it is recorded as a positive change in behaviour of the prospects (Abramovich, 2013). Over the course of the research, this paper would refer to the mentioned variables when we set out to measure the effectiveness of a campaign on social media. The dependability of variables that determine effectiveness is the key focus of this research paper. The hypothesis includes vividness, content, the position of post, timing and call to action as the variables that the effectiveness will depend upon.
The overall goal is to find the relationship between the prospect's mental process and the social media-based advertisement and its buzz. This relationship can be recorded through their reactions after being exposed to this advertisement. This is the reason why most social media advertising campaigns are filled with a call to action so that they can determine the reactions of the social media users. (Durvasula et al., 2001). A number of researchers also suggest the systematic study of the reactions to the social media campaigns based on the country of its origin. As in most developing countries which includes Pakistan, there is always a chance for non-acceptability towards the advertisement.
In this study we will be focusing on what lies behind a successful campaign, knowing the vast psyche of our nation. Pakistan has one of the biggest turnover of cell phones everywhere which means that we have one of the largest growing communities on social media. We believe this is why brands are moving and focusing more on their creating awareness on social media because to them it is effective and they benefit from the outcomes of their online marketing campaigns. Our goal in this study is to determine what makes their Ads and their online marketing campaigns successful using focused variables that are a reliable source in determining outcomes in marketing.

Research Objectives
There are two objectives of this research; y To identify which characteristics of the brand-posts are important in the effective engagement of online consumers. y To identify how vividness, call to action, content type, scheduling of posts and position of posts affect the three online behaviours of consumers, namely, like, comment and share

Research Questions
The two research questions of this study are: y Which characteristics of brand-posts such as vividness, call to action, content type, scheduling of posts, and position of posts affect customer engagement such as likeness, sharing and commenting of that brand-post? y Which characteristic is most important amongst them to have higher customer engagement in terms of likeness, commenting and sharing?

LITERATURE REVIEW
Engagement from customers has developed over the previous years. The Internet had started since the 1980s, but customer engagement came in through the Internet boom in the late 1990s. Smart organizations all over the world are now focusing more on creating content and services that encourage more customer engagement. The expansion has followed pace with the advancement in the internet where customers had provided feedback in the process, (Wirtz et al., 2010). Web 2.0 was focused on reactions and actions from both sides of the screen i.e the creator and the viewer. This resulted in the creation of many social networking websites such as Orkut and Hi5 in the early 2000s. Microsoft came up with MSN Messenger which revolutionized how people interacted on the internet. It converted an Email Bound networking world in an instant messaging infrastructure. This came in as an opportunity from firms to instantly advertise their services.
In the initial days, emotions involved in social media was restricted to people interacting with people. Internet scams through email had left many consumers sceptical of products that existed online and had a validation and trust issue. The social media boom had generated millions of traffic in the form of people emotionally investing in people on their social media. This behaviour and ability of them being involved emotionally invoked a lot of firms to take advantage of the fact. Early influencers were hired by firms to indirectly promote products and got a commission in result, (Sashi, 2009). The entire industry that is now known as Affiliate Marketing took its root. Amazon was the pioneer of affiliate marketing and it offered these services to bloggers who were influencers the masses. This then spread on to different social networking sites such as Orkut and Hi5. The internet was still limited and most brands could not reach the masses through such affiliates as they kept their advertising budget mostly on traditional methods. The Internet saw a massive increase in its user base in developing countries through the years of 2004-2006. This once again gave firms a new opportunity to market their products to a much larger audience than before. Social Media Websites were now being seen as a tool to validate a business. Its existence on social media made any company a brand and its representation resulted in better engagement from all the prospects and the customers.
In order for us to understand the new found ways how social media was allowing these firms to reach a new audience, it is important for us to see and point out the limitations of the traditional advertising channels. The traditional media such as print, television and advertisement on pages on the internet presented a forced approach to brands. These brands appeared out of nowhere and had low chances of attracting consumers. It also was directed towards a mass audience in hope to find its way to the actual target audience. The firms could not measure the response that their marketing efforts are getting and they would have to wait on a large impact in order to find how their previous campaigns had done in the market. Social Media Marketing provided a targeted focus group in the advertisement. The resources of the company now, are only utilized fully only on the target audience. This would result in low expenses when having a niche market. The firm would also have a larger working capital to target its own niche market, resulting in enhancement of their own approach. Secondly, through social media advertising, firms can have real-time responses of how their new campaign is doing. This statistic helps in making a timely decision when it comes to further promoting an advertisement campaign. It also helps when an advertisement is being taken negatively because the immediate response to it may minimize the negative image (Tikkanen et al., 2009).
Although social media advertising is a way to connect more deeply with the audience, satisfaction is necessary. The reason behind this assertiveness is the fact that social media marketing targets a deeper sense of the audience, as it creates a deeper bond. The expectation level of the prospect is increased through it. Satisfying the customer not only creates a positive impact but promote repeat purchases from the customer. Zappos.com uses this technique to not only create repeat purchases but word of mouth. It is so helpful to them to a level that they have now allocated half of their marketing budget towards better customer service. This has also been established in the research by (Mittal and Kamakura, 2001). This has been established to a degree that now marketers divide their marketing strategy into two parts i.e external and internal. In the external part, they consider their customers as their marketing tool according to Firat and Dholakia, (2006). A satisfied customer also paves the way for a product analysis in the customer's mind that results in increased customer equity, as reported by Anderson et al., (1994).
Customers that are happy with service or product do not tend to keep quiet about his/ her experience. They let their peers and friends know about their experience of the product, (Harrison-Walker, 2001). This is one of the biggest advantages of social media marketing. It has the highest rate of turning paid advertising into organic advertising, where customers willingly promote the brand through word of mouth.

Engagement
With the rise of sophisticated technologies alongside the internet, a significant number of platforms have emerged which have created interaction between consumers and brand communities. These interactive experiences are known as customer engagement. Customer engagement helps in creating brand value, acts as a strategic imperative, creates a competitive advantage and ultimately enhances business performance. Customer engagement involves psychological processes combining emotional, cognitive and behavioural orientations of consumers (Brodie, Ilic, Juric, & Hollebeek, 2013). According to, Brodie, et. al (2013), the customer engagement process in an online setting comprises of sharing, co-developing, socializing, learning and advocating it online. These sub-processes enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, empowerment, emotional connection with brands and trust and commitment.
Engagement means how much the advertisement is making customers participate in its call for action. It also includes people's reactions in actions towards the advertisement. (Abramovich, 2013). Engagement means that there is a positive response from the consumer side and they are participating in the call to an action done or they would like some more content from the advertisement side. Engagement determines that the consumer is reacting to the campaign.
There are three possible behaviours to be engaged in communication on Facebook; like comment, and share. Facebook has an inbuilt algorithm which gives weight to each behaviour suggesting the strategic implication of them (Kim, & Yang, 2017). Kim and Yang, (2017) studied when each behaviour can be stimulated through organizational messages. Findings indicated that Sensory and visual message features stimulated like rational and interactive message features stimulated comment, while sensory, visual, and rational message features stimulated sharing behaviours among Facebook users.

Vividness
An advertisement that taps into a particular sentiment, a message that evokes strong emotion towards a particular feeling, that brand is ranked above its competitors and has a loyal following. Vividness can be defined in many terms. It can be classified as a sense of feeling or it can be described as the ability of a brand to evoke different senses (Steuer, 1992). It is evident from countless researches that the way how a consumer feels about a certain brand or product has a very large impact on his/her buying patterns. In this research, we focus on social media where people express the situations of their lives based on how they feel about certain topics. Therefore, social media all ready to perform a platform that allows consumers to feel and sense, which they can express and evoke their feelings to their peers. Vividness is one of the biggest elements today when it comes to successful campaigning. It is a term not limited to social media marketing while being a key discipline in all sort of marketing. When we focus on any advertisement that has been successful in the past years, we notice a clear pattern that it appeals to people's emotions. Tafesse (2015) in their research paper analyzed dimensions of Facebook brand-posts in terms of interactivity, vividness, brand consistency, novelty, and content type. They tested how these dimensions affect user likes, comments and sharing of those posts on Facebook. Their findings suggest that vividness has a positive significant effect on shares, but not on likes. Interactivity has a negative significant effect on both likes and shares. Novelty and consistency have a positive significant effect on both likes and shares. While, the content type has a positive significant effect on likes, but not shares.

Content of Post
The content is basically the material in the advertisement that creates a likeness factor in the customer. It can be something relevant, viral, exciting that usually sends positive vibes towards the customers and make them talk about the brand (Muntinga, Moorman, & Smit 2011). Content is very crucial when it comes to grabbing the attention of the consumer and to provide an image of the brand. A good content portrays the high value of the brand and it affects consumer by changing their opinions and assertively insert a message from the marketing perspective. According to Zhang, and Benyoucef (2016), content characteristics such as informational or entertaining content plays a major role as a stimulus is affecting consumer responses. Luarn, Lin, and Chiu, (2015), examined how different attributes of brand posts influence online customer engagement. They identified how interactivity, vividness and type of content effects consumer engagement in terms of like, comment and share. Their results supported their hypotheses.

Position of Post
The position of the brand refers to how the advertisement is placed. It mainly focuses on yielding the maximum audience. Researches (Dreze & Hussherr, 2003) suggests that there is a positive impact on viewership if the advertisement is intelligently placed. No matter well the content and vividness are of a brand if it is not placed at the right time or position, it is bound to be ineffective. Placement means that when and where the advertisement should hit the consumer, to gain maximum attention.

Scheduling
Scheduling is basically the pattern through which advertisement is being shown. It can include the timings, the frequency and the amount of the advertisement campaign. (Media scheduling, 2017). Scheduling focuses on the most effective cycle that the campaign can run in. Each previous part of the campaign should complement the next part. Scheduling can play an integral part in maintaining rapport with consumers.

Call to Action
Whenever an advertisement is aired, if it invokes a sense of urgency to take any action, it is known as a call to action. It can be as simple as provoking the customer to buy the product or as subtle as filling a form for information. (Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary, 2018). When the consumer performs a specific task it means that they are reacting positively towards our stimuli. Call to action also makes the consumer remember the brand as they have now themselves done a task in favour of the brand.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
For this research, we have selected the method of questionnaires for our data collection. To determine what makes Ads and online marketing campaigns successful we used variables such as Vividness, Content of Posts, Position of Posts, Scheduling and Call to Action. It was conducted on 300 respondents. We used the questionnaire to collect the data and used a semantic differential scale. The survey/questionnaire collected from social media users who are active. The questionnaire was focused towards demographic of different ages, gender, social class, and social media platform preference.
Our instrument of data collection is a questionnaire that we upon researching and reading various articles came to the conclusion of using a comparison assessment basis. This is where two Ads of variations on the same variable is put forth for the subject to view and then is asked using a semantic scale to mark the number according to their preference based on our question. Many of our studied papers regarding the advertisement of various kinds had done so, and so decided to incorporate that in our assessment of the digital advertisement world. We dissected out variables into two forms of comparable Ads and then put forth them to our subjects in the form of images and the subject then would give their opinions to our questions based on the images they saw. Our questions were based to analyze what multiple aspects of Advertisements on social media helps it getting better engagement from the users.

Hypotheses
H1. Ad A has high vividness which has a significant effect on the engagement of that Ad.
H2. Ad B has low vividness which has a significant effect on the engagement of that Ad.
H3. Top Position of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad.
H4. Bottom Position of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad.
H5. Informational Content of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad.
H6. Entertaining Content of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad.
H7. Direct Call to Action of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad.
H8. Call to Action with Clear Benefits of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad.
H9. Ad scheduled for Early Morning has a significant relation effect on engagement that Ad.
H10. Ad scheduled later in the Day has a significant effect on engagement that Ad.   Table 1 shows the mean, standard deviations, reliabilities and correlations of all the variables. Only call to action does not have a correlation with the content of the post. Table 2 shows the insight to what demographic we had come across while conducting our survey. It turns out that amongst the total of 300 surveys that we conducted, 227 were males and 73 of the males, the percentage breaking down to 75.7% of the total respondents being male and 24.3% of the total being female. From all of our respondents, 7.7% were of age less than 21 while 5.7% is less than 31 to 40 and the rest of the 86.7% were from the ages of 21 to 30. From an academic point of view, only 1.3% of our demographic was of Matric/O Level, 8% from Inter/A Level, 25% from Graduate level and the major chunk of 65.7% were of undergraduate level.

N=300
Vividness TLI was 0.992 (must be >0.9), RMSEA was 0.035 (must be < 0.08), CFI was 0.997 (must be >0.90), CMIN/ df. Ratio was 1.365 (must be equal or less than 3), GFI was 0.993 (must be > 0.90), AGFI was 0.973 (must be > 0.80). Therefore all the model fit indices showed that the model was significant.  In the above table, Ad B was found to be more vivid by the respondents as it is Significant. As the Estimates of Ad B were found to be 0.468 while estimates of Ad A was found to be insignificant. Thus, H1 which stated that Ad A has high vividness which has a significant effect on the engagement of that ad is insignificant and rejected. Similarly, H2 which stated Ad B has low vividness which has a significant effect on the engagement of that ad is significant and thus accepted.

Position of Post
TLI was 0.87 (must be >0.9), RMSEA was 0.142 (must be < 0.08), CFI was 0.948 (must be >0.90), CMIN/ df. Ratio was 7.061 (must be equal or less than 3), GFI was 0.966 (must be > 0.90), AGFI was 0.873 (must be > 0.80). Therefore the model was insignificant according to most model fit indices.  In the above table, POS4 (top position) was found to be more preferred by the respondents as it is significant. As the Estimates of POS4 were found to be 0.363. Thus, H3 which states Top Position of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad, is significant & accepted. Similarly, H4 which is, Bottom Position of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad is insignificant and rejected.

Content of Post
TLI was 0.986 (must be >0.9), RMSEA was 0.035 (must be < 0.08), CFI was 0.994 (must be >0.90), CMIN/ df. Ratio was 1.712 (must be equal or less than 3), GFI was 0.991 (must be > 0.90), AGFI was 0.966 (must be > 0.80). Therefore all the model fit indices showed that the model was significant.  In the above table, CON4 (informative Ad) was found to be more preferred by the respondents as it is Significant. As the Estimates of CON4 were found to be 0.332. The ratio of engagement was met with a mixed reaction. Thus, H5 which states Informational Content of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad is significant and thus accepted. While H6 which states Entertaining Content of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad is insignificant and rejected.

Call to Action
TLI was 0.969 (must be >0.9), RMSEA was 0.080 (must be < 0.08), CFI was 0.988 (must be >0.90), CMIN/ df. Ratio was 3.00 (must be equal or less than 3), GFI was 0.984 (must be > 0.90), AGFI was 0.94 (must be > 0.80). Therefore all the model fit indices showed that the model was significant.  In the above table, Neither CTA4 nor CTA5 were found to be preferred by the respondents. As the Estimates were not significant. The ratio of engagement was found to low as well. Thus, H7 which is Direct Call to Action of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad is insignificant and rejected. Similarly, H8 which states Call to Action with Clear Benefits of an online Ad has a significant effect on engagement that Ad is also insignificant & rejected.

Scheduling of Post
TLI was 0.965 (must be >0.9), RMSEA was 0.080 (must be < 0.08), CFI was 0.986 (must be >0.90), CMIN/ df. Ratio was 3.02 (must be equal or less than 3), GFI was 0.983 (must be > 0.90), AGFI was 0.937 (must be > 0.80). Therefore all the model fit indices showed that the model was significant.  In the above table, SCH4 (Morning) was found to be more preferred by the respondents as it is Significant. As the Estimates of SCH4 were found to be 0.482. Thus, H9 which states Ad scheduled for Early Morning has a significant relation effect on engagement that Ad which is significant and accepted. While H10 states that Ad scheduled Later in the Day has a significant effect on engagement that Ad which is insignificant and rejected

DISCUSSION & CONCLUSION
From our research, we figured out quite a few things but we believe now that when it comes to social media or marketing in social media nothing is set in stone. For reasons, one or many, audiences are so infused with social media that almost anything that is "bright" instantly catches their eyes and in the eyes of the audiences that is where vividness lies as well as the fact that is where engagements were received in greater numbers. Our second key finding was that content no matter nature, it appears lower on the screens or lower on whatever social platform our audience is using is less likely to be engaged. What we learned from that is the more a person scrolls down the more they lose interest. Moving further we figured out that amongst our respondent's people preferred getting clear benefits, in terms of a call to action. They would rather be told what exactly will be their benefit from clicking on a particular call to action rather than being told the action that will take place. Moreover, in terms of content, to our surprise, informational content piece was preferred by our audience over entertaining content, which to our later research made us realize that the videos with titles 'How to' or '5 steps' or 'DYI' are one of the most watched videos and we know the reason why. The last of our finding was the scheduling of post, of which we realized that our subjects in the survey would all prefer nocturnal browsing of social media.
On further analysis of our data, we figured out that some posts triggered commenting and sharing activities, but not liking activities. This came to us as a shock because liking is the far easier and quicker engagement act than sharing or commenting. Interestingly, liking could be regarded as a more superficial activity compared with either commenting or sharing. Specifically, in terms of vividness, it seems to endear users to comment and share without necessarily engaging in the activity of liking.
Our read on few past research papers on similar subject had led us to devise ways we can dig deeper into the minds of the users of social media and analyze on a more detailed level, to find what results in better engagement for an Ad. Specifically, our main north-star for this research from which we sought directions was done by Chua, and Banerjee (2015). Their research on vividness showed uncomprehensive results if vividness actually works in the eye of the user, we believe our research has allowed us to bring those results to a more precise and comprehensive answer. However, we too like they understand that the results are highly subject due to nature and method the content is shown and it seems, for now, we will have to do with the insights provided by social media platforms to find out what works best for engagement.
Furthermore, the results of our study are also consistent with Luarn et. al, (2015); Coyle and Thorson, 2001;Fortin and Dholakia, 2005; that high vividness leads to high engagement of online consumers. In their study high vividness lead to higher content sharing and commenting but fewer likes. The content type also influenced the level of online engagement, which is consistent with previous studies of Luarn et. al, (2015); De Vries et al., (2012); Mishne and Glance, (2006).

Practical Implications
Before the survey being was being conducted it was partially blurry for us to see to how exactly we will be able to generate results that are highly subjective to one's personal choice to be turned into useful material in terms of implications. However, near the end, we realized the results were far to leaning towards one side to not be able to be translated into practicality. We now believe our data is significant enough for future marketers or social media marketers to be used practically. Our research model clearly defines the relationship between engagement on a post against the variables we put forth and with engagement being more than just a vanity metric we believe the implications of our research will bore out the results for the one that pays heed to the variables and the knowledge we put forth.
Brand-page administrators must consider the pros and cons of posting ads on social media as it affects online engagement of consumers and may fire back. Enhancing the consumer interactivity requires various instruments and this study can help those brand-page administrators to establish their strategies which will increase the frequency of likes, comments of their brand pages.

Limitations
While we realize that our research has allowed us and anybody that is looking to work in the same research domain to have a deeper insight into the reasons of engagements and in turn the direct effects of a brand post, however, our research has several limitations that it is burdened with, for example, the effectiveness of each of the variables taken into account are not the only ones, to go into detail would mean to identify and research furthermore variables that take part in a user's decision to engage at the same time, we believe that our limitations in terms of research respondents do not represent the whole of our audience effectively, even though this research has its own importance and data that is can be taken into consideration. We believe a larger audience number should have been taken into account to have been research that could be a direct representation of the country of Pakistan.

Future Research
As we have come to realize from working on our research for the past year that the social media, and its metrics and their importance is growing and with that being said the audience of social media is increasing day by day, so much is unknown regarding effective means for creating engaged and profitable consumers. Most notably, our analysis reveals that using some of the more "visual" aspects of things how a post is perceived. It is, however, is important specifically from a business/branding perspective that we realize that social media is part of the world wide web or internet and being part of the digital world means to change or update quickly. We ever so strongly encourage investigations into how the changes in the social media platforms, in terms of their usage, security updates, terms and conditions, rules and even the innovations and technological advances, How do these bring in change in terms of consumer usage, or maybe the effectiveness on social media itself. Does it make brands lose the audience? Does it change the level of engagement? Will the current variables of measuring effectiveness even work for brands and users in the next few months? These research opportunities include social media factors related not only to mobile users but also in terms of the different types of social media platforms themselves (e.g., Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, Instagram) and how each of these with their own separate style of content attracts consumer engagement. These and other antecedents offer rich opportunities for future research.