Developing Brand Loyalty through Consumer Engagement with Brand Communities in Social Media

Abstract

Despite the importance of consumer engagement in social media, the theoretical meaning and dimensionality remain unclear to date. This paper addressed this void by proposing consumer engagement as a multi-dimensional model consisting of cognitive, affective and behavioral dimensions and testing the model along with its antecedents (brand and product involvement) and consequence (brand loyalty) in the context of brand-hosted social media communities in South Korea. This study used a web-based survey method for data collection (N = 364). Results of SEM provided empirical evidence that supports consumer engagement as a three-dimensional construct. Further, both brand involvement and product involvement were found to positively influence all three dimensions of consumer engagement which further contribute to brand loyalty. This study contributes to the social media marketing literature by validating the three-dimensional model of consumer engagement within brand social media communities. Additionally, the results guide marketers to take consumer differences in product and brand involvement into account in facilitating consumer engagement with brand communities on social media.