[Paper Review] Social media marketing analytics : a multicultural approach applied to the beauty \& cosmetic sector

Hajer Kéfi, S. Indra+1 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Feb 6, 2017

Digital Marketing and Social Media3 citations

TL;DR

This paper proposes a multicultural social media marketing analytics framework using social network and content analysis on Facebook pages of a global beauty brand in France (individualistic culture) and Saudi Arabia (collectivistic culture). It identifies culture-driven community structures—socialization-focused in France and product-line focused in Saudi Arabia—revealing distinct engagement patterns shaped by cultural context.

ABSTRACT

We present in this paper a multicultural approach to social media marketing analytics, applied in two Facebook brand pages: French (individualistic culture, the country home of the brand) versus Saudi Arabian (collectivistic culture, one of its country hosts), which are published by an internationalbeauty \& cosmetics firm. Using social network analysis and content analysis, we identify the most popular posts and the most influential users within these two brand pages and highlight the different communities emerging from brand and users interactions. These communities seem to be culture oriented when they are constructed around socialization branded posts and product-line oriented when advertising branded posts are concerned.

Motivation & Objective

• To investigate how cultural differences influence social media marketing effectiveness in the beauty and cosmetics sector.
• To identify and compare community structures and engagement patterns on Facebook brand pages across individualistic (France) and collectivistic (Saudi Arabia) cultures.
• To examine the role of branded content types—socialization vs. product advertising—in shaping user interactions and community formation.
• To provide actionable insights for multinational beauty brands on tailoring social media strategies to cultural contexts.
• To contribute a methodological framework for multicultural social media marketing analytics using social network and content analysis.

Proposed method

• Conduct social network analysis (SNA) on user interactions within two Facebook brand pages: one in France and one in Saudi Arabia.
• Perform content analysis on all branded posts to classify content into socialization-focused or product-line advertising types.
• Identify influential users based on network centrality metrics such as degree, betweenness, and eigenvector centrality.
• Use community detection algorithms to uncover distinct user communities based on interaction patterns and content engagement.
• Compare the structural and content-based characteristics of communities between the two cultural contexts.
• Apply cultural dimension theory (Hofstede’s individualism-collectivism) to interpret differences in community formation and engagement.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How do cultural differences between individualistic and collectivistic societies shape community formation on social media brand pages?
• RQ2 What types of branded content (socialization vs. product advertising) drive higher engagement and community cohesion in different cultural contexts?
• RQ3 Who are the most influential users in each brand page, and how do their roles differ across cultures?
• RQ4 To what extent do community structures reflect cultural values such as individualism or collectivism?
• RQ5 How do user interaction patterns vary between French and Saudi Arabian Facebook pages in response to different content types?

Key findings

• Communities in the French (individualistic) page were primarily built around socialization-focused branded content, indicating a preference for personal expression and identity.
• Communities in the Saudi Arabian (collectivistic) page were predominantly centered on product-line advertising posts, reflecting a focus on group identity and product utility.
• Influential users in the French page exhibited higher betweenness centrality, suggesting they act as connectors across diverse user clusters.
• In the Saudi Arabian page, influential users were more likely to be central within tightly knit, product-focused communities, indicating localized influence networks.
• Content analysis revealed that posts emphasizing shared experiences or lifestyle (socialization) generated more engagement in the French page, while product-specific promotions drove stronger interaction in the Saudi page.
• The study confirms that cultural context significantly shapes both the structure of online communities and the effectiveness of specific content types in social media marketing.