The impact of engaged users on eWOM of hotel Facebook page

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine factors affecting the engagement metrics of the hotel Facebook page. Such factors include time-of-day, day-of-week, age, gender and distance between the hotel and users' origin of residence. Another purpose is to assess the impact of Facebook engagement on electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM), to better understand the importance of the engagement metrics within the hotel Facebook context. Design/methodology/approach - This study uses secondary data from the Facebook page of a 147-room hotel in Northeast America. A total of 181 observations reflecting primary Facebook metrics are adopted via Facebook Insights between January 2014 and June 2014. Findings - The number of daily-engaged users positively affects the number of daily people talking about the page (eWOM). Moreover, the number of engaged users differs significantly by the external factors (time-of-day, day-of-week, age, gender and distance). Practical implications - Hotel Facebook developers should post the most important promotions on Monday afternoon, targeting females aged between 25 and 34 years living within 50 miles of the hotel. Posting on hotel Facebook a few hours before "traffic" to avoid competition and gain visibility is important. Marketers should focus on giving feedback during peak times. Originality/value - This empirical study extends prior studies on social media metrics to the effects of external factors on the engagement metrics within the hotel Facebook context. Increasing the number of engaged users improves the effectiveness of eWOM for a hotel, which lacks empirical evidence.