Received: 15 January 2019 Revised: 24 November 2019 Accepted: 26 November 2019

DOI: 10.1002/cb.1800

SPECIAL ISSUE ARTICLE

Consumer engagement on social media: Evidence from small

retailers

Elise Devereux | Louise Grimmer | Martin Grimmer

Tasmanian School of Business and Economics,

University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia
Correspondence
Louise Grimmer, Tasmanian School of
Business and Economics, University of
Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.
Email: louise.grimmer@utas.edu.au
Abstract
This study investigates which characteristics of the social media posts of small firms
in Tasmania, Australia elicit higher levels of consumer engagement. Results from an
analysis of small retail firms’ social media postings (Facebook, Instagram and Twitter)
(N = 2,607) illustrate the importance of the content of the post (i.e., businesses-
related vs. non-business-related), the activity (i.e., text, image or video), the time of
day of the posting and the platform on which the activity was posted, in eliciting
responses from followers. Results show Facebook received significantly higher levels
of engagement, compared with Twitter and Instagram. Contrary to expectations, the
specific day of the week did not have any impact on levels of engagement. This
research demonstrates how small businesses can improve their use of social media
marketing to engage more effectively with customers and followers.

1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N
The growth of the Internet and the rise of the digital economy have
completely altered the trading environment for small businesses, par-
ticularly small retail firms. Consumers are changing how they access
information about products and services, and traditional modes of
shopping are evolving at a rapid pace. Social media has emerged as a
significant part of an integrated marketing communications approach
for businesses of all sizes (Valos, Habibi, Casidy, Driesener, &
Maplestone, 2016). Indeed, social media is now an essential ingredient
in the information era, and in responding to the digital economy and
significant consumer uptake in the use of smart phones, organisations
are using social media marketing to directly communicate with their
customers, disseminate marketing messages, build communities and
engage with consumers (Dwivedi, Kapoor, & Chen, 2015; Lipsman,
Mudd, Rich, & Bruich, 2012; Neti, 2011).
Given its ease of use, cost-effectiveness and reach, social media
marketing has gained an increasingly important role in integrated
marketing communications (Alves, Fernandes, & Raposo, 2016;
Constantinides, 2014; Dwivedi et al., 2015). In 2016, approximately
1.8 billion people spent time on social media and 77 per cent of them
engaged with social media content by liking, commenting, sharing and
clicking on links (Kanuri, Chen, & Sridhar, 2018). Social media sites
such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube attract
millions of daily users which makes them attractive platforms for the
attention of marketers, as well as scholars from a variety of disciplines
(Kapoor et al., 2018).
The impact of social media marketing on consumer engagement
has been the focus of increasing attention from researchers and mar-
keting practitioners (Ashley & Tuten, 2015; Oh, Bellur, & Sundar,
2018; Schivinski, Christodoulides, & Dabrowski, 2016; Shu-Chuan &
Yoojung, 2011). Indeed, Alalwan (2018) states that social media ads
empower customers to have more engagement through ‘liking’, ‘shar-
ing’ and ‘commenting’. Consumer engagement is considered to be a
significant factor in measuring the impact and effectiveness of social
media marketing efforts in an organisational context (Liu, Lee, Liu, &
Chen, 2018; Oh et al., 2018; Schivinski et al., 2016).
Despite the growing use of social media marketing and its
increasing value in generating engagement, many small firms are
either yet to utilise social media or are not using it effectively or effi-
ciently as a marketing tool (Grimmer, Grimmer, & Mortimer, 2018;
Taneja & Toombs, 2014; Wang, Pauleen, & Zhang, 2016). Indeed,
small retailers often lack the capabilities and resources to respond as
effectively as their larger competitors in this regard (Atanassova &
Clark, 2015; McDowell, Harris, & Geho, 2016). The focus of this
paper, therefore, is on levels of consumer engagement with small firm
social media marketing. Specifically, this research investigates which
types of company or firm posting ‘activity’ (text, video or image)

J Consumer Behav. 2019;1–9. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cb © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 1
2 DEVEREUX ET AL.
results in higher levels of consumer engagement manifested as ‘likes’,
‘shares’, ‘retweets’ and ‘comments’. The research also considers the
impact of business-related versus non-business-related content; day
of the week and time of the day that posts are made, in influencing
levels of consumer engagement.
This exploratory research aims, therefore, to examine the impact
of social media marketing efforts by small businesses in Tasmania,
Australia on consumer engagement to answer the following research
question:
RQ: How does the type of social media activity by small businesses
affect their level of consumer engagement?
The research uses secondary data to examine the characteristics
of small business social media activity that affects the level of con-
sumer engagement. The research also answers Alalwan, Rana,
Dwivedi, and Algharabat's (2017) call to discover the impact of differ-
ent social media platforms (i.e., Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) on
the effectiveness of promotions to reach customers. This research
contributes to both consumer behaviour and retail literature by pro-
viding a coherent understanding of the activity types that elicit the
most consumer engagement with social media marketing posts in a
small business context. Methodologically, it contributes by illustrating
how content analysis of social media can be used and interpreted in
retailing and small business studies.
This paper is organised as follows. First, a brief description of the
research context is provided. This is followed by a review of the litera-
ture on social media marketing and consumer engagement. The
method, results and discussion are then presented, and the paper con-
cludes with a summary of the main findings, the contribution to the-
ory and practice, and suggestions for future research.
2 | LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 | Research context
In Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
countries, the retail sector makes a significant contribution to employ-
ment, business activity and GDP (Tajeddini, Elg, & Trueman, 2013). In
the last three decades, there has been significant growth in the num-
ber of large retailers, as well as the nationalisation and globalisation of
many retail firms. However, it is small firms that tend to dominate the
retail industries in many countries (Campbell & Park, 2017; Hallak,
Assaker, O'Connor, & Lee, 2018), and this is also so in Australia where
over 95 per cent of all businesses are classified as small or micro
(Grimmer et al., 2018).
A ‘small business’, as classified by the Australian Bureau of Statis-
tics, is one with fewer than 20 employees and a ‘micro’ business
employs fewer than five staff (Gilfillan, 2015). The Australian retail
sector is the second largest employing industry and is dominated by
small firms, highlighting the importance of the small business sector to
the Australian economy and the community more broadly (Grimmer
et al., 2018). Due to their small size, small firms experience financial
and resource constraints, including marketing knowledge and
expertise (Grimmer, Miles, Byrom, & Grimmer, 2017; Nakara,
Benmoussa, & Jaouen, 2012). Many small businesses are therefore
attempting to use social media marketing in place of more traditional
forms of advertising, because social media is accessible, cost-effective
and immediate (Dahnil, Marzuki, Langgat, & Fabeil, 2014; Felix,
Rauschnabel, & Hinsch, 2017; Nakara et al., 2012). However, small
business owners often lack the skills and expertise to fully understand
how each platform operates and which platforms are appropriate and
effective for marketing their business (Cole, DeNardin, & Clow, 2017).
The use of social media marketing in small firms varies; a French
study found just 7 per cent of SMEs did not use social media (Nakara
et al., 2012), whilst 31.5 per cent of small retailers in Tasmania,
Australia were not using any form of social media to promote their
businesses (Grimmer et al., 2018). For those businesses using social
media, the most commonly used platform is consistently Facebook
(Grimmer et al., 2018; Michaelidou, Siamagka, & Christodoulides,
2011). As stated earlier, small firms often do not have the resources
and capability for strategic planning and implementation, including in
marketing (Atanassova & Clark, 2015; Grimmer et al., 2018). Calli and
Clark (2015) identified five categories of barriers to the use of social
media in small to medium enterprises (SMEs): management, IT, finan-
cial, staff, and the operating environment. Yet, these authors indicate
that SMEs have the potential to integrate social media marketing into
their marketing practices with appropriate training and development,
and that the need is indeed pressing for such businesses to remain
viable and also grow. Social media can also potentially fulfil a number
of related functions for small firms, such as supplying market intelli-
gence and acting as a form of dynamic communication with customers
(Atanassova & Clark, 2015). In order for SMEs to develop in this area,
understanding their social media practices is vital.
2.2 | Social media marketing
Social media encompasses all Internet-based applications that accord
with Web 2.0. Social media allows for user-generated content to be
created and exchanged with others (Alalwan et al., 2017; Kaplan &
Haenlein, 2010; Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2016). Social media also
allows for collaboration and interaction between participants through
a variety of applications such as blogs, microblogs, social networking
sites, virtual worlds, content communities and review and feedback
sites (Alves et al., 2016). Increasingly, social media platforms are
replacing traditional channels of advertising as organisations seek to
reduce the cost of marketing and gain greater return on investment
(ROI) on their advertising efforts through engaging in various forms of
digital marketing. Over the past 15 years, researchers have developed
a substantial body of research on the role of digital marketing, social
networks, social media marketing and mobile marketing (Alalwan,
2018; Alalwan et al., 2017; Fan & Gordon, 2014; John, Emrich,
Gupta, & Norton, 2017; Lamberton & Stephen, 2016; Michaelidou
et al., 2011; Stephen, 2016) as well as examining the impact of social
media on consumer perceptions of brands and organisations
(Schivinki & Dabrowski, 2016).
DEVEREUX ET AL.
As marketers increasingly adopt social media marketing in place
of more traditional advertising methods, the role of social media in
integrated marketing communications, consumer engagement, ROI
and sustainable competitive advantage, has received attention in this
journal (e.g. Heinonen, 2011; Page & Pitt, 2011) and others
(e.g. Jobs & Gilfoil, 2014; Taneja & Toombs, 2014; Bakeman & Han-
son, 2012; Castronovo & Huang, 2012; Lipsman et al., 2012).
An area of interest for researchers and marketing practitioners
has been a shift from face-to-face communication (word of mouth,
WOM) towards consumers connecting with each other online (elec-
tronic WOM). WOM is defined as the way consumers share informa-
tion (attitudes, opinions and reactions) about products, services and
organisations with one another (Jansen, Zhang, Sobel, & Chowdury,
2009). It has been recognised as playing an important role in influenc-
ing customer attitudes and behaviour (Berger, 2014; Stephen, 2016).
The influence of WOM on consumer decision making is well
recognised in the early marketing literature (e.g. Burnkrant &
Cousineau, 1975). Perhaps the most important feature of WOM is
that the information about brands and products is generated by
other consumers, rather than by the company, and is therefore
considered more trustworthy and impartial (Feick & Price, 1987).
With the advent of the Internet and Web 2.0, WOM has evolved
to include communication via social media referred to as electronic
word of mouth or eWOM. Importantly, consumer engagement with
social media marketing is facilitated through eWOM (Daugherty &
Hoffman, 2014; Doh & Hwang, 2009). The notion of eWOM encom-
passes all touch points a consumer may have with a brand or business
online presence. Included are interactions with the brand itself and
with content generated by the company, with other consumers who
have experiences with the brand themselves and even those who do
not (Barnes & Jacobsen, 2014; Chu & Kim, 2011; Kozinets, Valck,
Wojnicki, & Wilner, 2010). Therefore, of great interest to researchers
and marketers is the impact of credible (See-To & Ho, 2014; Wang,
Cunningham, & Eastin, 2015) WOM and eWOM on purchase inten-
tion (Alalwan, 2018; East, Hammond, & Lomax, 2008; Erkan & Evans,
2016; Kapoor et al., 2018; Moran & Muzellec, 2017; You,
Vadakkepatt, & Joshi, 2015).
Social media marketing has assumed a dominant position over ‘tra-
ditional’ marketing channels (television, radio and print) due to its reach
and ease of accessibility (Guadagno, 2013; Kotler, Kartajaya, &
Setiawan, 2016). Alalwan et al. (2017), in their systematic review of the
literature, noted that 93 per cent of the 144 articles studied reported
that social media platforms increased the impact of WOM as compared
with traditional media, and noted the expanding reach of social media in
encouraging consumers to share their experiences of products and
brands. Existing research on social media marketing has predominantly
focused on large organisations (Constantinides, 2014; Evans, 2010;
Tiago & Verissimo, 2014); there have been fewer studies concerned
with small firms, particularly small retail firms which are the focus of this
study. Indeed, Carmichael and Cleave (2012) in a study on Facebook
found that social media advertising can be cost-effective for a small
business even if the click-through rate is small. It is important for small
retailers to think beyond the ‘likes’ and how many followers they have
3
on social media, and to instead take a more strategic approach in
attempting to engage more meaningfully with consumers (Alalwan et al.,
2017; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2012; Keegan & Rowley, 2017).
2.3 | Consumer engagement
Consumer engagement with social media marketing has received sub-
stantial attention from scholars (e.g.Ahmad, Musa, & Harun, 2016;
Alalwan, 2018; Alalwan et al., 2017; Cole et al., 2017; Goodrich &
Mooij, 2013; Taneja & Toombs, 2014). Consumer engagement, in gen-
eral, is related to several cognate concepts, such as brand loyalty, con-
sumer product involvement, relationship marketing, brand networks
and communities, and marketing orientation (Barger, Peltier, & Schultz,
2016). Tafesse (2016) stated that engagement entails a consumer's psy-
chological and behavioural predisposition to interact with brands (see
also Ashley & Tuten, 2015; Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014). Van
Doorn et al. (2010, p. 254) talk more specifically about consumer
engagement behaviours as ones that: ‘go beyond transactions, and may
be specifically defined as a consumer's behavioural manifestations that
have a brand or firm focus, beyond purchase, resulting from motiva-
tional drivers.’ As Bianchi and Andrews (2018) similarly point out, con-
sumer engagement in a retail sense suggests a behavioural component
with consumers interacting with the firm or brand.
Consumer engagement in the context of social media can be
described as a customer's interaction with a business post on social
media (Oh, Roumani, Nwankpa, & Hu, 2017; Vries, Gensler, &
Leeflang, 2012). Researchers have addressed how to capture this
interaction or level of engagement through different measures includ-
ing how many users join social media accounts (Michaelidou et al.,
2011). One of the challenges for marketing scholars and practitioners
is how to measure engagement with social media marketing efforts;
many businesses do not actually use any metrics to assess the effec-
tiveness of their social media marketing strategies (Michaelidou et al.,
2011). Whilst the number of followers is perhaps the most obvious
form of engagement, it may be considered as a fairly superficial mea-
sure (Barger et al., 2016). That is, it takes more attention and effort to
engage through making a comment on a post than it does to simply
follow an account. Calder, Malthouse, and Schaedel (2009) in a study
of engagement with website advertising found that interactive
engagement was associated with advertising effectiveness which was
measured as ‘reactions to the ad’ and ‘likelihood to click through’.
However, one of the challenges in measuring engagement arises from
the differences between platforms and the ways consumers can
engage on various platforms (Barger et al., 2016; Coursaris, Osch, &
Balogh, 2016; John et al., 2017). For example, Instagram allows for
likes and comments but not shares (as do Facebook and LinkedIn) or
retweets (as does Twitter).
Emerging from the need to understand the relationship between
small business activity and consumer engagement on social media, this
research aims to identify which types of activity on social media elicit
the highest levels of engagement (e.g. ‘likes’, ‘comments’, ‘re-tweets’
and ‘follows’) from followers on different social media platforms.
4 DEVEREUX ET AL.

Engagement, for the purposes of this study, involves interaction with TABLE 1 ANZSIC classification codes
posts on social media and the level of participation in the post (see Oh Per
et al., 2018). These metrics (‘likes’, ‘comments’, ‘re-tweets’ and ‘fol- ANZSIC retail classification code n cent
lows’) are commonly used by industry and are said to be more granu- Supermarket and grocery store 2 1.8
lar than number of followers (Lee, Hosanagar, & Nair, 2018). The Specialised food retailing 6 5.5
metrics are also measurable actions that consumers take on social
Furniture, floor covering, house wares and textiles 4 3.7
media and emphasise the co-creative nature of the medium (Barger
Electrical, electronic and gas appliances 2 1.8
et al., 2016; Tafesse, 2016).
Recreational goods 12 11.0
The level of consumers’ participation and attention also affects
Clothing, footwear and personal accessories 24 22.0
the form of engagement: greater attention equates to a higher level of
Pharmaceutical and other store-based retailing 25 22.9
engagement (Barger et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2018). This is supported
by Oh et al. (2018) who tested a model showing that sharing content Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services 34 31.2

(in our case, ‘commenting’) is a heightened form of engagement, above Total 109 100.00

simply interfacing with social media (in our case, ‘liking’). In this regard,
more ‘comments’ would represent a higher level of engagement than
‘likes’ because posting a comment requires a higher level of attention TABLE 2 Data collected from small business social media
and involvement with the post than ‘liking’ or ‘sharing’ (Harrigan, platforms
Evers, Miles, & Daly, 2017; Hollebeek et al., 2014; Phang, Zhang & Data coded
Sutanto, 2013; de Vries, Gensler, & Leeflang, 2012). It is intended, by By small business
taking this approach to engagement, that a coherent understanding 1. ANZSIC
will be generated of the activity types that elicit the most consumer 2. Number of followers by platform

engagement with social media marketing posts in a small business 3. Number of posts by platform

context. By post
1. Post is business-related or not
2. Post contains solely text, or includes picture and/or video

3 | METHOD 3. Day of week posted

4. Time of day posted
3.1 | Sample frame 5. Likes, comments, retweets, and/or shares per post (depending on
platform)

The population for the study was small retail businesses located in the
central city area in Hobart, Tasmania, Australia. The sample frame
comprised small businesses listed on the ‘Hello Hobart’ database
(www.hellohobart.com.au). This publicly available database is com-
piled and managed by the local authority, the Hobart City Council,
and lists all businesses within a defined geographic boundary of the
central city area. Three criteria were used to confirm the subsequent
sample: the business had to be a retailer; have a physical shopfront,
and it had to be ‘small’ (employing fewer than 20 staff in accordance
with the Australian Bureau of Statistics classification). Of 250 eligible
businesses, 109 were using social media platforms for marketing their
business and were subsequently used as the sample for this study.
The Australian and New Zealand Standard Industry Classification
(ANZSIC) of the businesses is shown in Table 1.
3.2 | Data collection
Each business's social media accounts on three platforms (Facebook,
Instagram, Twitter) were used as forms of publicly available secondary
data (Neuman, 2011). The data collected included information about
the individual business, that is, their ANZSIC classification code, the
number of followers on each of the three social media platforms of
Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and the number of posts over a one-
month period, which was deemed sufficient to gather an appropriate
level of data (see Section 4). Data were collected manually on the
social media activities and engagement of the small businesses by the
primary author, and a sample of 10 per cent were cross checked by
the other authors. A coding sheet was developed (referencing the
data listed in Table 2). Data were initially entered into an Excel
spreadsheet and subsequently imported into SPSS (Statistical Package
for the Social Sciences, Version 23) for analysis.
Data included information about posts made to their social media
accounts as well as the type and characteristics of the post. The selec-
tion of characteristics for coding was made both deductively and
inductively (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005). Deductively, some codes were
determined by examining relevant research that has analysed social
media posts (e.g. Ashley & Tuten, 2015; Lee et al., 2018; Tafesse,
2016), such as, number of posts; social media platform, and the likes,
comments, retweets and shares associated with the post. Alterna-
tively, some codes were determined inductively based on a scan of
the social media posts from a sample of the small businesses; for
example, whether the post contained solely text, or included picture
and/or video; whether the activity posted related to the business or
not, and day of the week and time of day the activity was posted. See
Table 2 for post characteristics collected through the coding process.
DEVEREUX ET AL. 5

TABLE 3 Posts by social media platform TABLE 4 Posts by day of the week

Frequency Per cent Frequency Per cent

Facebook 1,307 50.1 Monday 467 17.9
Instagram 1,021 39.2 Tuesday 355 13.6
Twitter 279 10.7 Wednesday 361 13.8
Thursday 418 16.0
Friday 389 14.9

Activities that were or were not directly related to the business were Saturday 363 13.9

determined by the content of the post. If any aspect of the post related Sunday 254 9.7
to a product or service provided by the business, then it was considered
related to the business (e.g. X product is now on sale). Posts which had TABLE 5 Posts by time of day (excluding Instagram)
no business content were considered not related (e.g. the weather is cold
Frequency Per cent
today). The level of engagement with each post was measured by the
number of ‘likes’, ‘comments’, ‘retweets’ and ‘shares’ the post received. Before 7 a.m. 110 4.2

Some of these responses were platform specific (e.g. ‘shares’ for Between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. 285 10.9

Facebook and ‘retweets’ for Twitter), and so could not be analysed cumu- Between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. 322 12.4
latively across platforms; this was as opposed to ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ Between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. 268 10.3
which were universal (Barger et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2018; Tafesse, 2016). Between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. 341 13.1
After 7 p.m. 293 11.2

4 | RESULTS
4.1 | Preliminary analyses
A total of 2,607 posts across all three platforms were recorded for the
109 businesses over the one month of data collection. Across the
platforms, Facebook received more posts, in general, than both
Instagram and Twitter (see Table 3).
There were more business-related (2,232; 85.6%) than non-business-
related (375; 14.4%) posts. Posts including a picture (2,137; 82%) were
much more frequent than either text only (352; 13.5%) or video posts
(118; 4.5%). There was a relatively even distribution of posts throughout
the days of the week. As seen in Table 4, the two days with the most
posts were Monday and Thursday with (over 400 for both days). The day
with the least amount of posts was Sunday (under 300). The time of the
day an activity was posted to social media follows a similarly expected
pattern. The least amount of posts occurred before 7 a.m., and the
greatest amount occurred between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and 1 p.m. and
4 p.m., with each of these latter times having over 300 posts (see
Table 5). It is important to note that time of day for Instagram posts was
not included in the data as this information was not publicly available.
4.2 | Inferential analyses
Further analyses were undertaken to determine which factors
impacted the level of engagement in the businesses’ social media
activity, as demonstrated, according to social media platform, by the
number of ‘likes’, ‘comments’, ‘retweets’ and ‘shares’ per post. This was
initially examined in terms of the characteristics of a post, as described
in the previous section. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was
first conducted to compare the number of ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ (the
two ‘universal’ activities) across the social media platforms. There was
a significant difference in terms of both ‘likes’ (F[2, 2604] = 232.958,
p < 0.001) and ‘comments’ (F[2, 2604] = 12.102, p < 0.001) across the
platforms. Post-hoc testing revealed more ‘Likes’ for Instagram posts
(x = 55.99) compared with Facebook (x = 24.6) and Twitter (x = 0.71).
On the other hand, Facebook received a higher number of comments
(x = 3.2), than Instagram (x = 1.69) and Twitter (x = 0.06).
There was a significant difference in the number of ‘likes’ and ‘com-
ments’ across business-related and non-business-related posts (F
[1, 2605] = 4.077, p < 0.05) with more ‘likes’ received for business-
related posts (x = 35.08 vs. x = 29.69). There was not, however, any dif-
ference in terms of the number of comments (F[1, 2605] = 0.679,
p > 0.05). A third one-way ANOVA compared ‘likes’ and ‘comments’
across text, picture or video post. Both ‘likes’ (F[2, 2604] = 67.193,
p < 0.001) and ‘comments’ (F[2, 2604] = 4.377, p < 0.05) differed sig-
nificantly across this characteristic. Post-hoc testing showed picture
posts attracted more ‘likes’ (x = 39.0) than video (x = 29.8) and text
only (x = 7.8) posts. In terms of ‘comments’, text only posts received
the least (x = 0.6), significantly different from video (x = 2.7) and pic-
ture (x = 2.5) posts (the latter two did not differ).
A fourth one-way ANOVA compared the ‘likes’ and ‘comments’
of the across days of the week. The results showed no significant dif-
ference across day of the week for either ‘likes’ (F[6, 2600] = 0.783,
p > 0.05) or ‘comments’ (F[6, 2600] = 0.868, p > 0.05). The final one-
way ANOVA compared ‘likes’ and ‘comments’ over time of day: mid-
night to 7 a.m., 7 a.m. and 10 a.m., 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., 1 p.m. and 4 p.
m., 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. and 7 p.m. to midnight. A significant difference
was found for ‘likes’ (F[5, 1613] = 6.639, p < 0.001), but not for com-
ments (F[5, 1613] = 1.981, p > 0.05). Post-hoc testing for ‘likes’
showed that the most were received from 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. (x
= 28.88) and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. (x = 23.44), and these time slots did not
6 DEVEREUX ET AL.
differ significantly from each other. The least number of ‘likes’, under-
standably, occurred in the midnight to 7 a.m. time slot (x = 1.16).
Two-way ANOVA was conducted to determine if there was any
interaction between social media platform and whether the post was
business-related or not, and whether the post was text-only, or con-
tained a picture or video, in terms of both ‘likes’ and ‘comments’. In
terms of the first analysis, there was no statistically significant interac-
tion between social media platform and whether the post was business-
related or not in terms of ‘likes’ (F[2, 2606] = 0.658, p > 0.05) or ‘com-
ments’ (F[2, 2606] = 0.091, p > 0.05). Thus, there was no differential
effect of social media platform across the type of post on consumer
engagement. The second analysis showed a significant interaction
between social media platform and whether the post was text-only, or
contained a picture or video in terms of ‘likes’ (F[4, 2606] = 6.970,
p < 0.05). As shown in in Figure 1, Instagram had significantly more
‘likes’ when the social media post included a picture or video versus text
only when compared with the other platforms, which showed no such
effect. There was no significant interaction between each of the inde-
pendent variables in terms of ‘comments’ (F[4, 2606] = 0.122, p > 0.05).
5 | DISCUSSION
The aim of this research was to investigate levels of consumer engage-
ment with social media marketing in a small firm context to answer the
question: how does the type of social media activity by small businesses
affect their level of consumer engagement? Social media posts were
analysed to determine which types of posts elicited higher levels of con-
sumer engagement through ‘likes’, ‘shares’, ‘comments’ and ‘retweets’,
with ‘comments’ considered to represent a higher level of engagement by
requiring more attention, time and ‘commitment’ from consumers
(Oh et al., 2018; Woodford, Goldsmith, & Bruns, 2015). The findings of
this study will be discussed in turn.
F I G U R E 1 Interaction between
social media platform and type
of post
5.1 | Business-related content
A significant association was found between business-related posts and
the number of ‘likes’. It may be expected that posts which were in some
way related to core business would be more likely to encourage con-
sumer engagement, than those that contained non-business content.
Although ‘likes’ are an important part of engagement and business-
related posts received more ‘likes’ than non-business-related posts, the
analysis did not confirm that this relationship held for ‘comments’.
5.2 | Type of activity
The relationship between the type activity, that is, text, picture or video
post, and the level of engagement provided evidence of a significant
relationship between the type of activity and all types of engagement.
Further analysis showed that picture posts received more ‘likes’ than
either video or text-only posts. This is to be expected and our finding is
consistent with a study by de Vries et al. (2012) which found that vivid
and interactive posts enhance the number of likes.
5.3 | Time of day
We found an association between the level of engagement and the
time of day of the post. In our study the only significant relationship
was between time of day and ‘likes’; there was no relationship found
between time of day and ‘comments’, ‘shares’ or ‘retweets’. The signif-
icant time periods for higher levels of engagement through ‘likes’ were
between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. in the day and between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m.
That this effect was not for ‘comments’ is noteworthy, given that this
level of engagement requires the greatest investment of time and
effort on the part of the consumer (Woodford et al., 2015).
DEVEREUX ET AL.
5.4 | Differences between platforms
This study examined three different social media platforms, selected on
the basis of them being the most common platforms used in a business
context, particularly by small businesses (Grimmer et al., 2018).
Facebook received the highest level of engagement through ‘comments’
and was in that regard the most successful platform for businesses to
use to engage with consumers in this type of activity (Alalwan et al.,
2017; Dolan, Conduit, Fahy, & Goodman, 2015; Harrigan et al., 2017).
In terms of considering engagement of a higher volume but with less
depth than ‘comments’, Instagram was the more successful platform to
post on. A significant two-way interaction was found between social
media platform and whether the post was text-only, picture or video in
terms of ‘likes’. Instagram received more ‘likes’ per post on picture and
video posts (to be expected due to the visual characteristics of
Instagram posts). But for Facebook and Twitter, there was no significant
difference in ‘likes’ across text-only, picture or video posts.
5.5 | Day of the week
The importance of the day of the week for eliciting higher levels of
engagement was not supported. We investigated if there was a rela-
tionship between certain days of the week and higher levels of engage-
ment and analysis revealed no significant difference between levels of
engagement and the day of the week on which posts were made. This
was a surprising finding and one that is contrary to prior research
(Dodds & Danforth, 2010; Leung, Bai & Stahura, 2015; Spasojevic, Li,
Rao, & Bhattacharyya, 2015) and indeed to the plethora of advice
handed out by digital marketing consultants (e.g. York, 2018).
5.6 | Conclusion
The confirmation of the specific attributes of social media posts that elicit
higher levels of consumer engagement will assist small businesses
improve their approaches to social media marketing. In addition, an under-
standing of the best times to post on social media is useful for developing
an effective social media marketing strategy. Small businesses with limited
resources need to make important overall decisions about which plat-
forms are best for marketing their business (Alalwan et al., 2017). This
study shows for small businesses, Facebook is the platform that has
higher levels of consumer engagement, as evidenced through higher num-
bers of ‘likes’ but also higher numbers of ‘comments’, and supports Kapoor
et al.’s (2018) observation that Facebook is the market leader in terms of
social media. In this regard, small businesses can now make an informed
decision about which specific platform to invest resources in, versus trying
to manage multiple platforms. Indeed, consumers who take the time to
leave ‘comments’ are likely to be more engaged with the brand or busi-
ness, and this type of engagement is important in encouraging a deeper
relationship with consumers (Oh et al., 2018).
This study presents a number of avenues for future research. First,
it would be useful to move beyond engagement to identify the
7
relationship with actual purchase behaviour. In other words, engagement
is one step in the process of encouraging customers to actually purchase
products and services from the firm. Second, age is likely to be a factor
in social media use (Bolton et al., 2013), both in terms of staff tasked
with social media posting and consumers engaging with social media
marketing. Third, further research from the firm point of view could
examine actual social media strategy as well as barriers to engaging more
strategically with social media as part of a broader integrated marketing
communications approach. Fourth, one of the limitations of the research
is that it focused on a certain segment of industry; expanding the
research to other industries, of varying firm size, would provide more
insight into social media strategy more broadly. Finally, it would be useful
to examine the seasonality of social media marketing; are there differ-
ences between winter versus summer months or between holiday versus
non-holiday seasons? In summary, through an examination of social
media post attributes and consumer engagement, this study contributes
to the marketing and small business literature by providing an under-
standing of how small businesses might engage more effectively with
their customers.
OR CID
Louise Grimmer https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6815-0932
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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES
Elise Devereux graduated from the University of Tasmania in 2017
with a Bachelor of Business (Honours) in Marketing. Elise works
as a marketer in Tasmania, Australia.
Louise Grimmer is Senior Lecturer in Marketing in the Tasmanian
School of Business and Economics at the University of Tasmania.
Her research focus is retailing, advertising, marketing communica-
tions and public relations. She has published in leading journals
including Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Journal of
Small Business Management and the Journal of Consumer Behaviour.
She holds a Master's Degree in Communication and PR from
Deakin University and a PhD from the University of Tasmania.
Martin Grimmer is Professor of Marketing in the Tasmanian School
of Business and Economics at the University of Tasmania. He spe-
cializes in consumer behavior with a focus on green marketing
and pro-environmental consumer behavior, as well as retail mar-
keting. He has published in leading journals including Journal of
Business Research, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of
Small Business Management. He holds a Master's Degree in Psy-
chology from the University of Queensland and a PhD from the
University of Tasmania.
How to cite this article: Devereux E, Grimmer L, Grimmer M.
Consumer engagement on social media: Evidence from small
retailers. J Consumer Behav. 2019;1–9. https://doi.org/10.
1002/cb.1800