Examining the impact of luxury brand's social media marketing on customer engagement​: Using big data analytics and natural language processing

Abstract

This research utilizes big data in investigating the impact of a luxury brand's social media marketing activities on customer engagement. In particular, applying the dual perspective of customer engagement, this research examines the influence of focusing on the entertainment, interaction, trendiness, and customization dimensions of a luxury brand's social media activities on customer engagement with brand-related social media content. Using big data retrieved from a 60-month period on Twitter (July 2012 to June 2017), this paper analyzes 3.78 million tweets from the top 15 luxury brands with the highest number of Twitter followers. The results indicate that focusing on the entertainment, interaction, and trendiness dimensions of a luxury brand's social media marketing efforts significantly increases customer engagement, while focusing on the customization dimension does not. The findings have important implications for the design, delivery, and management of social media marketing for luxury brands to engage customers with social media content.