The Influence of a Brand’s Visual Content on Consumer Trust in Social Media Community Groups

Lukas Karpenka,Artiom Volkov,Elzė Rudienė,Mangirdas Morkunas

doi:10.3390/jtaer16060133

Lukas Karpenka, Artiom Volkov + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/jtaer16060133

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Abstract

The study covered by the present paper sought to look into a range of factors affecting the building of trust in brands among social media community groups. For the purpose of the present study, in order to measure the influence of visual content, the authors of the present paper investigated its visual as well as emotional characteristics while factoring in consumer engagement variables. In order to test our hypotheses, two different visual advertisements of an artificial hypothetical apparel brand were created. The robustness of the results was ensured by the findings of the representative consumer survey and a factor and regression analysis. The survey concluded that engagement with the brand-created content by social media community groups may be viewed as a proxy variable when studying the consumer confidence in a brand within consumer groups. The authors of the paper also argue that an image-based content identity does affect the engagement with the content created by a brand within the social network community groups. The difference impact of the cognitive, emotional or behavioral involvement of social media community group members onto the formation of brand trust is revealed.

Highlights

Social media community groups (SMCG) are an ever-growing platform for opinionsharing, enhanced discussions and advice [1,2]
Hypothesis H1 seeks to identify the confidence drivers that can be reflected by the video image created by a brand within social media community groups
Since there are total four confidence drivers, hypothesis H1 distinguished four additional partial hypotheses (a, b, c, and d) that define the boundaries of the study of the possible influence of video content characteristics on each confidence driver

Summary

Introduction

Social media community groups (SMCG) are an ever-growing platform for opinionsharing, enhanced discussions and advice [1,2]. On the major social media platforms, the SMCG are referred to almost identically and perceived as providing comparable functionality. Focusing on specific subject matters brings together consumers of similar interests that are interested in and willing to engage with the content [3]. In addition to being involved in a range of discussions and advice, the users in their respective groups look for goods to sell or buy and check out for different promotions [4]. SMCGs expose particular behavioral qualities, such as satisfaction-driven engagement with the content created by the community, and boosting one’s self-confidence through belonging to an SMCG [1]. Social media community groups are a highly relevant channel for trade marks [5]

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