Abstract
With the advent of digital age, engaging customers on social networking sites has become an essential marketing activity of companies. Facebook has recently gained enormous popularity for marketing communications. Vast use of Facebook around the globe has made it an important advertising platform, where businesses place their ads to reach their prospective customers. This is probably because Facebook allows an organization to target specific customer and promoting their product or services through effective advertisements. Facebook especially describes itself as the perfect marketing tool because its developers have created an advertising system which allows businesses to use the information of each Facebook user for targeted advertising. Despite the current boom of Facebook for marketing, this study reveals that how Facebook advertising is part of the trust building relationship between the consumer and a Nestle India Ltd. This case study, through a questionnaire survey of 103 respondents who follow Nescafe Fb brand pg, analyses that how Nestle India Ltd optimizes Facebook platform to engage Indian customers for Nescafe. The gap between brand identity and brand image of Nescafe in India is investigated. The results shows that to engage maximum customers the content should be more customized and rendered to be directed to the users' needs and desire. The results also delineate that customer participation leads to customer engagement, which in turn plays a crucial role in generating E-word of mouth. Practical implications are suggested for Nescafe using Facebook as a social marketing tool and areas for future research identified.
