PAPA.ph Bataan utilized Facebook as its primary marketing platform. It faced challenges like the Facebook algorithm, social media noise, and market saturation. To address these, it boosted posts, created relevant content in English and Filipino, highlighted unique services, and partnered with local businesses. These solutions helped increase its Facebook likes and followers from 1,130 to over 4,300 in three months. The company saw a direct correlation between social media engagement and sales, with ride numbers increasing to 30-40 per day. Consistent posting and responsive customer service contributed to its growing social media presence.

1. papa-sa ba:
PAPA.ph Bataan's usage of Facebook
as marketing platform
S O C I A L M E D I A T E C H N O L O G Y A N D
C O M M U N I C A T I O N C A M P A I G N S
J O H N C H R I S T I A N M . A G U S T I N
F R A N C H E Z C A G I D D E L D . U D A N
V I R G I N I A M A E M . C O N S T A N T E
A L E S S A N D R A M A E P . E S T R A D A
S T E P H E N P A U L M . F E L I P E
C R I S H A N E D E V I N E D I Z O N
B A C H E L O R O F A R T S I N C O M M U N I C A T I O N
N E W M E D I A T R A C K 2
1 S T S E M E S T E R , A Y 2 0 2 0 - 2 0 2 1

2. THE COMPANY
PAPA.ph is an all-errand service provider that started their
business operations in Pampanga on October 2018. Seeing
opportunity for growth, the company started expanding in
different provinces of Central Luzon,currently having four
branches in Pampanga, Bataan, Bulacan, and Tarlac. PAPA.ph—
Bataan, meanwhile, started their operation on July 23, 2020.
Since it is an all-errand service, there are no particular
limitations of service that they are offering as long as it is legal.
Mainly, their customers affords their papabili service, in which the
customer can ask them for deliveries of food, groceries,
medicines, and other goods, and papadala service wherein the
customer can send money, gift and many more to other people
through them.
PAPA.ph considers being “the central force of an ecosystem of
entrepreneurs in the areas we operate in through our network of
customers, suppliers and logistics services” as their primary
objective. In line with this, they are trying to expand and to reach
all provinces in Central Luzon. The all-errand service provider
also has several partnerships with businesses within the province,
allowing them to have as many customers as possible. They are
mainly using two platforms to reach their customers—through
their own application named after the company, and through their
Facebook page(s) that has estimated 4,300 likers.
Kimberlee Anne Melu is the current operations and social media
manager of the PAPA.ph Bataan. She gained her bachelor’s degree
in Agricultural Economics Major in Agricultural Marketing and
Prices at University of the Philippines—Los Baños, not in line of
her current career. Melu gained her experience in marketing field
when she worked as brand officer at Mekeni Corporation, where
she later met the current chief executive officer of PAPA.ph who
also worked as former marketing manager and brand officer in
the said corporation. She also worked as account specialist at
Golden ABC, the company responsible for retailing the products
of clothing lines like Oxygen, Penshoppe and Regatta.
target market
The primary target market of PAPA.ph—Bataan is male
and female from middle class that can afford their services,
preferably within the said province to give faster services.
Millennial generation is known as the busy generation.
According to study by Carmichael (2016), millennial
generation are more likely to see themselves as work
martyrs, leaving them little time to run on errands. Thus,
although there is no limitation on particular age group, the
company considers people age ranges from 18 to 40 years old
to be their main target market In this case the services
provided by the company makes their life easier, convenient
and time saver.
Profile & background

3. The algorithm of Facebook controls the presentation of posts, primarily focusing on
what it deems relevant to a certain user. In other words, rather than publishing content
chronologically, posts and ads in a timeline are presented based on what Facebook
deems and sees as pertinent to the user.
Facebook’s algorithm has been constantly evolving. In 2018, businesses have seen a
turn for the worse when the social media giant’s Chief Executive Officer Mark
Zuckerberg decided to center content on the user’s friends and family members instead
of spam from companies. Meanwhile, in 2019, the platform has provided its users the
“Why am I seeing this post?” update and has also utilized surveys to gather feedback on
whether the content they are seeing was relevant to them. The latest upgrade has
further alerted brands to improve their audience reach and interaction.
Such development has been one of the difficulties an emerging business like service
provider PAPA.ph of Bataan faces. On behalf of its team, Operations Manager
Kimberlee Melu has particularly struggled to keep up with the regular updates. The
people behind the brand in effect must diligently learn and adapt to the new changes
every time the application shifts its algorithm.
THE CHALLENGES
FACEBOOK ALGORITHM
Companies typically encounter a variety of challenges in their attempts to achieve
success. Some of these challenges are environmental, like the COVID-19 Pandemic that
incapacitated multiple business ventures. However, because of social media, some
brands were able to regain function in the midst of a global crisis. Despite this, social
media continues to pose problems for businesses. It then begs the question: what are
some of these obstacles that new brands face in utilizing the online space for marketing
purposes?
This part of the study discusses the three crucial challenges, namely, Facebook
algorithm, market saturation and social media noise that confront PAPA.ph Bataan
branch as it emerges as one of the starting businesses in the area.

4. As of 2019, there were around 74 million Facebook users in
the Philippines. With the global health emergency at hand,
many companies in the country were forced to migrate and
boost their presence online as the number of users likewise
grew. Digital 2020 April Statshot report by Hootsuite and We
Are Social recorded that 64 percent of Filipino internet users
have been spending more time on social media, with 23 percent
indicating an increased activity in their online shopping
activity.
Thus, the market competition rose among the online
entrepreneurs. Businesses, like in the ordinary course of things,
struggle to heed the calls of their customers in order to survive,
if not succeed. PAPA.ph--Bataan branch specifically, perceives
this high demand as a threat, considering that the supplier
company is novel and newly constructed.
DELIVERY
ONLY
While the potential of social networking sites such
as Facebook to greatly contribute to a business’s
influence is present, there still pose plenty of
challenges when it comes to reaching a specific
audience.
According to Melu, PAPA.ph Bataan’s target market
is people ages 18 to 40 years old. While the delivery
service averages 30 to 40 rides a day and has around
4,000 likes on its Facebook page, it still admittedly
struggles to bring awareness and attract attention
towards its employment.
Social media noise, moreover, does not help
alleviate the company’s concerns at all, the manager
added. In its most basic sense, this kind of noise
included the thousands of posts, even those that are
not from an entrepreneur’s immediate competitors
that fill the internet space. This has resulted in the
slowing down and at times, even in the complete
hindrance of reach to the powerful marketing
medium. Otherwise stated, PAPA.ph in Bataan not
only competes with other businesses of similar nature
but also with the space and attention of its target
market.
SOCIAL MEDIA NOISE
MARKET SATURATION

5. .
PAPA.ph—Bataan adapted OGSM (objectives, goals, strategies and measure) as
their goal setting framework. This framework has been widely used for business
strategic planning process by companies. It helps the company corporate their
long-term visions and strategies to actions. Although PAPA.ph Operations
Manager Kimberlee Melu did not disclose their strategies and measurements for
confidentiality purposes, she shared the specific objectives and goals of their
company
According to Melu, PAPA.ph has the objective to be the central force of an
ecosystem of entrepreneurs in the respective areas where they are operating
through the various networks they have. In line with this, their primary goal is
“to operate and dominate in 10 Key Strategic Cities and establish the brand of
PAPA.ph as the preferred Errands Assistant service provider”.
For a newly established company like PAPA.ph, the social media platform
Facebook seemed to be the most accessible tool to promote their brand
awareness campaign considering the number of its users. To solve the challenges
identified: Facebook algorithm, social media noise and saturated market, the
company adopted the following solutions:
FACEBOOK ALGORITHM AND SOCIAL MEDIA NOISE
THE SOLUTIONS
Boosting their posts and widening their organic reach
Creating contents that relates with their potential customers
SATURATED MARKET
Highlighting their unique services
Partnership with local business inside the province
Active facebook page

6. F A C E B O O K A L G O R I T H M A N D
S O C I A L M E D I A N O I S E
.
Generally, boosting
Facebook posts and other
paid media helps businesses
to reach wider audiences and
potential customers, making
it one of the most popular
tools used in social media
marketing (Boland, 2014).
Hence, PAPA.ph opts to
regularly boost their posts in
accordance with their
allocated budget. Although
they did not disclose their
exact budget for boosting
their posts, Melu mentioned
While boosting the page’s posts may help
businesses to spread brand awareness to
possible customers, changes in Facebook
algorithm that allows the user’s News Feed to
be more personalized made some downward
impact to marketing as it decreases the chance
of completely unfamiliar audience to see the
page’s post. The new Facebook algorithm
increased the difficulty faced by brands to
reach their target audience (Mendenhall,2018),
Boosting their posts and widening their organic reach
that they are limiting their reach
based on demographics: age, gender,
and location specifically within
Bataan in order to control their
expenditure. In addition to this, she also
mentioned the need for applying for
boosting their posts earlier if they wanted it
.to be posted in particular day as there will still be
pending process for the approval of boosting.

7. Given these, PAPA.ph—Bataan started widening their organic reach as
much as possible. According to Melu, they joined various Bataan based buy-
and-sell groups that will possibly need delivery services. In addition to this,
PAPA.ph continued posting regularly on their page to maintain their social
media presence. Posting three times a day on their first month of operation
allowed them to gain an estimated of one thousand page likers.
For the following months, PAPA.ph
reduced their daily page posts
containing their own contents to two
as they gained several partnerships
with business owners in Bataan. The
partner businesses also started
promoting PAPA.ph by tagging them
on their posts, allowing their unique
followers to become aware of the
presence of the said company. The
interactions gained also increase the
chance of PAPA.ph to be considered
by the new algorithm as relevant to
the users.
.

8. 36.3%
78%
US Social Media users are
annoyed with Ads showed
on their feeds
In the interview, OP Melu shared
the things they consider when
creating their contents. Since they
already identified their target market,
assessing their needs and speaking
their language became easier for
PAPA.ph.
4C
COMMUNITY
CLEANLINESS
CONTACLESS
COMPASSION
Source: Emarketer (2019).
This increases the social media noise and competition among brands to
appear on the user’s feed. Taking these into consideration, social media
marketing experts urged the brands to create better quality content to engage
their audiences.
Thus, Coronavirus content focusing on:
are listed as one of the trends to follow for
brand survival.
Creating contents that relates
with their potential customers
As aforementioned, Facebook became the
leading social media platform used by brands to
connect with their market, grabbing
opportunities on the estimated three hours
expenditure of users in social media
(Globalwebindex, 2018).
CONSUMERS WANT BRANDS TO
HELP THEM WITH THEIR DAILY
LIVES
Source: Talkwallker and Hubspot (2020)
Considering the context when
PAPA.ph--Bataan started their
operations on July, the main pain
point they tried to resolve were the
travel restrictions and the possibility
of contracting the virus. Hence, most
of their page’s posts emphasized their
papabili service and other services
offered that minimizes their potential
customer’s travels.

9. As a result of months of lockdowns
and community quarantine, several
posts about food cravings are posted
in social media. On later months when
food establishments continued their
operations, although with restrictions,
PAPA.ph started publishing their
publication materials highlighting
these cravings and how they will be of
help. At the same time, they started
establishing partnership with several
business owners in Bataan.
Captions use
conversational tone
Combined English
and Filipino medium
Kept short with an
average of 30 words
Furthermore, their publication materials contain the
following traits:

10. S A T U R A T E D M A R K E T
While there are at least ten more delivery service
providers within Bataan that also targets PAPA.ph’s
m arket, the services offered are limited in delivery.
PAPA.ph—Bataan Operations Manager Melu sees the
unlimited services they offer as an advantage on
their business growth. Thus, their usage of same
taglines can be observed on their posts such as “kay
Papa, kayang kaya”. They also shared the posts from
their customers showing the riders of PAPA.ph
Bataan complying with their demands
As mentioned by Melu, although
PAPA.ph launched their own, large
percentage of their customers still
primarily reaches them through
messaging their Facebook page. They
assigned chat operators to
accommodate their potential
customers. They were able to respond
to their customers within few minutes,
earning PAPA.ph Bataan’s page a very
responsive to messages” badge. This
allows the potential customers that
they are not going to be ignored
(Sanchez and Ware, 2020) and gives
assurance that they will be
entertained.
PAPA.ph Bataan started establishing partnerships with several local business owners
in the province to secure their potential markets. These partnerships also provide
both parties mutual benefits given that the business owners needed delivery services
to reach their customers.
Highlighting their unique services
Partnerships with local businesses inside the province
Active Facebook Page

11. THE RESULTS
0.64
In an article published by Social Hospitality, it
has been mentioned that the median growth rate
for a Facebook page is around 0.64 percent a
week.
1,130
Exceeding this statistic, PAPA.ph Bataan was able
to garner a total of 1,130 likes- one week after
creating their official Facebook page.
2,686
At the end of their first
month, the page’s number of likes has increased
to 2,686.
4,331
4,472
61.24
By October 2020, third month into their
operations, the page has accumulated a total of
4,331 likes and 4,472 follows.
This figure shows that there has been a 61.24
percent increase in the total number of likes and
followers that the page has since the first month
of launching their page.
The total number of views on videos uploaded to their
page averages at 1,143- with their most viewed
promotional video, uploaded August 2020, now
amassing a total of 7,300 views. Reacts and comments
on individual posts appear to be few in comparison to
the number of people following the page.
1,143
7,300
The number of reacts on PAPA.ph’s posts ranges from 0
to 121 while the number of comments ranges from 0 to 6.
However, Post Planner, a social media marketing company,
assures that the figures presented are average, as pages with
1,000 to 10,000 fans typically generate an average of 22
interactions per post. All reviews posted on the page are
positive- with users commending PAPA.ph Bataan’s social
media team for their quick response to queries.

12. According to PAPA.ph Bataan’s Operations
Manager Kimberlee Melu, there is a direct positive
correlation between the amount of social media
engagement and the amount of sales they make.
The continuous increase in trend of PAPA.ph’s page
has also increased the amount of people availing
their services. In fact, as of October 2020, PAPA.ph
Bataan is able to deploy 30 to 40 rides in a day.
ANALYSIS
BRAND CONSISTENCY
In the book 30-Minute Social Media Marketing by Susan
Gunelius (2010), it has been mentioned that “brand consistency in
image and message” is one of the key factors in maintaining social
media success, as it instills “brand promise”. PAPA.ph Bataan
shows consistency by using a specific stylistic format to their
social media campaigns. The promotional materials they upload
to their page follow the same color scheme and font type. Typical
captions of their posts include the use of “PAPA”, both in
reference to their brand name and to their purpose of becoming
an all-around errand partner to their consumer base.
ORGANIC REACH
According to Falcon.io (2018), a social media marketing platform, only 6.4
percent of a page’s total likes is garnered through organic reach. In the case of
big businesses, the rate is significantly lower. Conversely, smaller and localized
businesses like PAPA.ph have more advantage in expanding their reach through
organic means. In Dan Zarrella’s The Social Media Marketing Book, social
media has been described as the great equalizer, as it enables smaller brands to
make big names for themselves without making huge investments. In fact, small
brands are even capable of rising above their more popular competitors in
social media. This can be attributed to the fact that smaller brands tend to move
faster and thus, are able to engage more with their client base. They tend to be
involved more in their community, which allows them to build better
connections with their customers. In the case of PAPA.ph Bataan, the increase in
reach of their page can be attributed to their regular posts, not just on their
official Facebook page, but on the buy-and-sell groups that they are a part of.

13. LANGUAGE AND TONE
Sprout Social, a social media management platform,
described brand voice as the distinct personality a
brand takes in communicating. It is created through
the stylistic use of language and the tone adapted by a
business.
In a study conducted by Anaïs Gretry, et.al (2017), it
has been discovered that using an informal brand
voice could either be beneficial or harmful to a
business, depending on the overall feel and
thefamiliarity of the consumers with the brand.
PAPA.ph Bataan adapts a casual, but polite tone in their communication
style. Their brand voice on social media effectively resonates with their target
market, which consists of Millenials in Bataan. In communicating, they have
adapted a tone that while respectful, is still friendly enough to connect with
the younger generation. They make use of puns and common Millenial lingo
such as ‘chill’ in their marketing campaigns. They tend to use Taglish (a
combination of Filipino and English language), to communicate better with
their consumer base, who speak said languages. In addition to this, captions to
their posts also tend to be concise, which further appeals to Millenials who
have been described as impatient, busy, always on-the-go, and easily-
distracted.
In a study conducted by İrem Eren
Erdoğmuş and Mesut Çiçek entitled The
Impact of Social Media Marketing on
Brand Loyalty (2012), it was discovered
that the brand loyalty of customers is
positively affected by the relevance of the
content a brand produces. PAPA.ph
Bataan’s promotional campaign is
successful in garnering the attention of
their market as it is both relevant and
relatable. They highlight possible
problems that the average consumer faces
in their day-to-day life, and markets their
brand as a solution to these struggles
RELEVANCE

14. PAPA.ph Bataan Operation’s Manager Melu was able to
identify a direct positive correlation between the amount
of social media engagement and the amount of sales is
identified. Furthermore, continuous increase in trend of
PAPA.ph’s page has also increased the amount of people
availing their services. Considering these, it is safe to say
that PAPA.ph Bataan is succeeding to promote brand
awareness through the platforms they areusing and is in
the process of materializing the goals they have set.
PAPA.ph Bataan is successfully able to build rapport with their community
though a variety of means. This includes joining buy-and-sell groups and
constantly sharing customer feedback to their page. Their quick and friendly
response to direct messages is also effective. Another contributing factor is
their collaborations and partnerships with other local sellers. They don’t just
advocate for themselves, but also for other small businesses in Bataan.
The aforementioned book by Gunelius
(2010) also highlights the importance of
Indirect Marketing to a business. Indirect
marketing is an effective way of raising
awareness about a business. It involves
gaining the trust of a consumer in order to
turn them into a brand advocate, or a loyal
customer who promotes the brand through
word-of-mouth. This is when establishing a
relationship with your community becomes
significant.
COMMUNITY