Examining social media branding profiles of logistics service providers

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the social media profiles of logistics service providers, and understand how they use social media for elevating their services and differentiating their brands across industrial partners. Design/methodology/approach A content analysis was conducted on 3,215 social media posts, which were gathered from the official Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn pages of seven logistics service providers operating in Turkey. Findings The results demonstrated that logistics service providers engage with multiple social media channels with different branding motives, and that each company has a unique social media profile. The benchmarking analysis also revealed the branding strategies commonly pursued by the companies, and also indicated the alternative themes that differentiate their brands across their competitors. Research limitations/implications The findings contribute to the literature on the utilization of social media by business-to-business companies, particularly for logistics service providers, and recommend a frame of benchmarks for practitioners in the development of more effective social media branding strategies in services context. Originality/value Studies explaining the social media engagement of business-to-business companies in service sector are lacking, and also, the services branding literature in the context of social media is rather scarce. This study investigates the social media profiles of logistics service providers and explores how they use social media for branding their services.