Purposes of the communication between companies and their Facebook followers

Introduction: Research on consumers' behaviour in online social networks is generating increasing interest among the business community due to the new and unexplored opportunities and threats of social networks, including the vast amount of data generated day after day. The objective of this study is to explore the use of Facebook as a source of valuable information about the interaction between Mexican telecom companies and their followers. Methods: The study is based on a qualitative approach, which involved the analysis of 2,000 posts (1,000 made by telecoms and 1,000 made by followers). Results and conclusions: the findings suggest that telecom companies use Facebook mainly for public relations and advertising and promotion purposes, while their users use this social network primarily to report incidents and problems and to make complaints and request information.