Elon professor's work about the meaning behind Facebook 'likes' finds national audience

The article by Assistant Professor of Marketing Alisha Horky and her co-author first appeared at The Conversation and has since been republished by multiple national media outlets. 

An article explaining what it means to “like” a brand on Facebook co-authored by Elon Professor Alisha Horky has been published at The Conversation and is gaining a national audience. 

“Here’s what happens when you ‘like’ a brand on Facebook,” written by Horky, assistant professor of marketing at Elon, and Mark Pelletier of Radford University was published this week at The Conversation, an independent source of news from the academic and research community. Horky and Pelletier wrote the piece based on research the pair had conducted to dig into the meaning of a Facebook “like,” particularly as it relates to companies and brands. They looked at what motivated people to “like” a brand, and how that varies based on the type of brand it is. 

Horky and Pelletier wrote that “although passive engagement with followers is perhaps not what gets the most attention when pundits discuss the benefits of Facebook engagement, it still offers benefits, such as becoming more ‘top of mind.’ Brand managers should not always assume that their loudest and most active Facebook followers are the only ones getting the message.”

Read more insights from Horky and Pelletier here. Content published on The Conversation is available for republication by any media outlet and the article has so far been republished by outlets including the Associated Press, the Houston Chronicle and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.