Do Customers Foster Engagement Through Social Media Interaction? Brand Prominence as a Moderator

Abstract

ABSTRACT Social media considerably impacts how customers attain information and share their experiences or choose their services/products including hotel brands. Based on this significance, we test a theoretical framework that inspects the association among social-media-interaction (SMIN), customer-brand-engagement (CBEN), self-brand-congruence (SBCO), co-creation, and revisit intention toward hospitality brands following service-dominant-logic and self-congruence-theory. We also test the moderating role of brand prominence among the proposed associations. The present research employs a sample of 315 luxury hotel-customers by operating PLS-SEM. The results reported that SMIN and SBCO have positive impacts on CBEN. Results also unveiled the CBEN’s significant influence on consumer’s co-creation and their revisit intent. The results illustrated the SMIN’s and SBCO’s indirect effect on co-creation as well as on revisit intention, while mediated through CBEN. Finally, the findings exposed a significant positive moderating effect of hotel-brand prominence in proposed links. This study concludes by summarizing crucial theoretical/practical implications for hospitality brands.