Measuring social media success: The case of Facebook marketing in the motion picture industry

Abstract

Social media marketing is playing a growing role in firms' marketing efforts. However, industry practice suggests that firms have difficulty in quantitatively measuring its impact and implementing effective content management strategy. This study attempts to assess the value of Facebook marketing for the financial success of a movie's theatrical release, and investigate what kind of high quality contents are most effective for movie studios. We construct a rich dataset that includes information about 200 movies' Facebook marketing activities, box office revenues, and various control variables such as traditional marketing expenditure, critical and customer reviews, and movie characteristics. We estimate that an official Facebook Page contributes to an average increase of more than 6 million US dollars in opening weekend box office revenue and more than 11 million US dollars in overall box office revenue. We also address the self-selection issues. Further on, we will dig more into both the intensity and content of those page posts by using text mining techniques. These findings will contribute to social media marketing literature, and provide practical implications for studios to improve their social media marketing implementation.