The automobile industry has an important role in the global economy. And Turkey is seeking to be a car manufacturer with its own brand. In order to be successful in the international market, businesses are trying to increase sales by establishing/maintaining a healthy relationship with consumers. Social media is the ideal platform for this communication. Businesses can review reaction of consumers by setting up a Facebook Brand Page. These interactions generate an online consumer engagement. Businesses are able to estimate sales figures with the feedback from gathered data. The aim of study is to estimate the sales of a non-local car brand in a wide market. France is chosen because the 7th largest car market and 45% of its population use social media. The most imported car in France is Volkswagen. Using the Decision Tree Regression, the 6-year data (2012-2017) from the Volkswagen Facebook brand page was analysed. In the test data, it has seen a strong correlation between the real value and the estimated one with 79% and the mean absolute percentage error is 9.3%. As a result, automotive businesses interactions with consumers via social media is considered to have a positive impact on their exports to France.
Keywords: Automobile Industry, Social Media, Online Consumer Engagement, Decision Tree Regression, Sales Estimation
Topal, İ. (2020). Imported Automobile Sales Estimation in France: Facebook Brand Pages’ Data Analysis with Decision Tree Regression. In 2 nd International Congress on Multidisciplinary Social Sciences (p. 144). Ankara/Türkiye: Bidge.
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