Social media content, customer engagement and brand equity: US versus Korea

Abstract

PurposeThis study analyzes the relationship between the characteristics of social media content, customer engagement (CE) and brand equity and investigates whether these relationships differ between national cultures.Design/methodology/approachWe collect data from a variety of sources, including Interbrand, Facebook and financial statements, to validate the research model using partial least squares structural equation modeling.FindingsThe results revealed that owned media content had a stronger positive effect on CE than did earned media content. In addition, information richness was found to have a positive effect on CE, but links to additional information had a negative effect. In addition, CE positively affected brand equity. The national comparison analysis revealed a difference in the coefficients between the United States and Korea for most paths.Research limitations/implicationsThis study contributes to the relevant literature by finding evidence that OM has a stronger effect on CE than does EM. In addition, this study expands the related literature by clarifying the effects of information richness in a CE context and exploring differences determined by cultural dimensions. Most importantly, this study expands CE and international marketing literature by finding that the relationship between CE determinants and outcomes in a social media environment differs between national cultures.Originality/valueThis study explores the relationship between CE and social media content, which has not been sufficiently investigated in previous studies, by collecting actual social media data. In addition, unlike previous survey-based studies, we find evidence that CE contributes to brand equity at a corporate level. Finally, our exploratory analysis indicates that the relationship between the characteristics of social media content, CE and brand equity differs between national cultures.