Author: Meredith    Stephens

Major: Marketing

Graduation Year: 2020

Thesis Advisor: Stefano Tijerina

Description of Publication: This thesis investigates two companies whose products offerings are alike, yet their branding via the Facebook platform is different. Throughout this thesis, there will be research gathered from organic Facebook posts between the two companies’ brand pages on the Facebook Platform. The research consists of total reactions as well as comments on a per post basis for various posts throughout September of 2018 and 2019. The raw data that this thesis will be using will be positive emotionality scores from LIWC1 (after comments are entered and run through the software) as well as the total number of reactions (likes, loves, WOWs, etc.) that correspond to the post the comments are drawn from. Following the collection of this data, the coding software R2 will be used to determine significances between the two companies LIWC scores and total reactions, assessing which company received higher reaction rates and more positive emotionality. There are two hypotheses that are associated with this data. The first one is that because Peloton uses a single Facebook page for both of their product offerings, then Peloton will have more overall reactions on their organic content than ClassPass and ClassPass Live have individually. The second hypothesis is that because ClassPass and ClassPass Live choose to separate their product offerings on Facebook into two identities, then ClassPass and ClassPass Live will each individually receive comments on their organic posts that reveal more positive emotions than Peloton. This thesis is informative because it presents a clear answer as to which branding strategy is the most effective for gaining the optimal number of reactions as well as positive emotionality on comments on organic content via the Facebook platform. Additionally, the research this thesis presents can aid in further studies for branding initiatives not only on the Facebook platform, but across all social platforms whose metrics are different yet equally important for a brand’s effectiveness with consumers.

Location of Publication:

URL to Thesis: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/honors/621/