Customer Brand Engagement, Perceived Social Presence, and Brand Trust and Loyalty in Corporate Facebook

Abstract

Marketers are increasingly using social media to increase engagement in brand communities, but this is such a new area that there has been limited research about how to make it work well for social media corporate webpages. This research looks at how customer brand engagement through corporate Factbook pages impacts brand trust, and indirectly brand loyalty. Perceived social presence is an important element in using the corporate FB page well. A survey of 425 users of corporate FB pages of smart device brands (laptops, tablets, smart phones) in Thailand shows that customer brand engagement and perceived social presence both have significant impact on brand trust. Brand trust has a large impact on brand loyalty, but perceived social presence also has a smaller, but significant impact. Customer brand engagement does not have direct impact on brand loyalty, but works indirectly through brand trust.