Language use in Facebook healthcare content marketing in selected countries

Abstract

Content marketing (CM) is a strategic marketing approach that uses compelling content to educate customers by providing valuable information using creative, educative, and persuasive language to inform and influence consumer behaviour. However, it has been observed that among marketers in healthcare CM on Facebook do not utilise language use and appropriately in producing content using ample digital space and lower costs. Health issues require institutional approval from medical practitioners; however, some individuals may decide what products/services to use and how to use them to resolve health challenges or improve their health by reading content by bypassing the medical practitioner. The study aimed to investigate the language use of healthcare CM on Facebook and its impact on consumer behaviour. The objectives of this study were to describe the linguistic features of healthcare CM on Facebook; describe persuasive techniques of healthcare CM on Facebook; evaluate the impact of language use in healthcare CM on consumer behaviour. The study’s purpose was to find out if the language is crucial to the efficacy of CM. The study employed the Language Expectancy Theory (LET) to interpret and make conclusions based on the evidence provided in the written content on linguistic features and persuasive techniques. The study employed a descriptive design to explain the persuasive use of language in influencing the audience. The study used a document analysis method in selecting healthcare content from Facebook. The data for this study were excerpts of written content purposively selected from healthcare Facebook pages. The content items were purposively sampled from 11 Facebook pages. From each Facebook page, four textual content items were drawn to make 44 content items. Then, simple random sampling was conducted to pick 23 content items. Using the LET framework, the data analysis involved a qualitative categorisation of the various themes of language use and feedback from Facebook users. The study found out that Facebook CM employs courteous, engaging, and reader-friendly language use. Features such as pronouns, repetitions, translations, colloquial language, and parallelism were found to play a significant role in enhancing CM efficacy by making the content captivating, memorable, readable, and persuasive. CM also uses other persuasive techniques to persuade the audience to take action, including storytelling, statistics, expert opinion, and emotional appeal. It was also found out that there is considerable use of linguistic features than persuasive features; pronouns and short sentences mainly were used. The study found that language use had an impact on educating and influencing people to take action. Feedback such as questions and interest to buy has a significant role in measuring the performance of content. The study concludes that linguistic features and persuasive techniques are critical for producing compelling content that influences customer behaviour. The study recommends that, for marketers to educate, engage, and lure the audience, especially in Facebook CM, they must use language strategically. With the digital revolution, marketers should upgrade their skills through training and online free learning resources to apply CM appropriately, especially in language use.