Determinants of Fan Engagement in Social Media-Based Brand Communities: A Brand Relationship Quality Perspective

Liguo Lou,Joon Koh,Yongbing Jiao

doi:10.3390/su13116117

Abstract

This study adopts a brand relationship quality (BRQ) perspective to reveal the reason firms’ investments in social media-based brand communities should increase their social relationship marketing performances. An empirical analysis with 234 Facebook users who joined brand communities was conducted to examine the proposed hypotheses, revealing that fan needs fulfillments—information, entertainment, social interaction, and monetary ones—had positive effects on BRQ. Further, BRQ was found to have positive effects on fans’ engagement behavioral intentions toward brands, including willingness to buy, member continuance intention, and electronic word of mouth intention. This study contributes to existing research that indicates a new mechanism of BRQ improvement via the social media-based brand community. Implications corresponding to the research findings as well as study limitations and future directions are also addressed.

Highlights

This study addresses the brand relationship quality (BRQ) working mechanism in the social media-based brand community context; the unit of analysis is at individual level
This study extended upon Dolan et al.’s [65] study that called for the development of a theoretical model describing the roles of brand fans within social media by linking brand fans’ needs fulfillment, BRQ, and fan engagement behaviors
This research emphasizes the importance of the BRQ in a social media-based brand community which can increase firm’s marketing performance, seeking to reveal a new and effective way to enhance fan engagement via adopting the BRQ perspective

Summary

Introduction

Social Media-Based BrandFor the past few decades, to build and garner consumer-brand relationships has been a core principle for marketing practitioners and researchers because the focus of marketing has been shifting from a transaction-based to a relationship-centered approach [1,2,3].Recently, scholars have developed Marketing 4.0 to call for a shift from utilizing traditional means to more digital approaches to reach customers and develop relationships with them [4,5,6]. As a representative digital tool in Marketing 4.0, plays an extensive role in our daily lives; brands across the globe are registered with social media platforms to foster relationships with consumers primarily via brand communities [7,8,9]. Considering the frequently used social media apps on our smart phones, it is evident that we often join a few brand communities on them. Among these brand communities, some act as useful marketing tools that facilitate brands to interact with fans and provide fans various benefits, which, in turn, encourages them to perform online brand-related activities like prosumers [11,12,13]. Nike and Redbull have invested a lot in their

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