Abstract:

Social Networking Sites (SNSs) have greatly changed e-commerce by creating a new dimension to online buying and selling procedures, as e-shops use them to communicate with consumers, strengthening brand awareness and brand loyalty. In this paper, the characteristics of posts that increase engagement in e-shop brands' pages on Facebook are investigated though the examination of the 10 most popular Greek e-shop pages. A total number of 1,616 posts were collected and analyzed, in order to identify the characteristics of posts that led to higher levels of engagement. The research expands the relevant literature via the study of the ‘reactions’, which is a comparatively new feature of Facebook. Results suggest that vividness of content (images, videos) do not have a positive effect on posts' engagement, while message length and reactions increase the engagement of posts. These results provide an insight of the effect that these features have on engagement of brand posts in SNSs.