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The consequences of consumer engagement in social networking sites-Thesis.pdf

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Abubakar LUJJA , Zeynep Özata

Consumer Engagement is increasingly becoming one of the important issues in the competitive business environment and with its unique features and structure, Social Networking Sites offer an upper advantage to build consumer brand relationships and instant consumer engagement. This study set out to determine the consequences of consumer engagement in social networking sites. Consumer engagement was viewed as a multi-dimensional concept comprising behavioral, cognitive and emotional dimensions and as such the hypotheses were aimed at determining how each of the three dimensions of consumer engagement affect the individual consequences of consumer engagement such as brand loyalty, satisfaction, commitment and trust. The study used a quantitative research design. It used a questionnaire survey to collect data from university students. Facebook is chosen as a case for this study. 400 questionnaires were collected and the analyses were conducted with the 387 valid questionnaire. The results suggest that emotional and behavioral engagement dimensions were significant predictors for brand loyalty; emotional engagement for satisfaction, cognitive and behavioral engagement for commitment, while behavioral and emotional engagement dimensions were found to be significant predictors for trust.

Kasper Bengtson

As the amount of content on Facebook is continuously increasing, it is getting more difficult for clothing brands to reach the consumers. Facebook has announced that promotional posts will begin to reach fewer people and that brands should create content, which engage the consumers. For an industry that communicates primarily through fashion magazines and advertisements, this is rather challenging without knowledge about why and how the consumers engage with clothing brands on Facebook. This is therefore what the study aims to understand. The particular consumer group, college students, has been investigated in the study, which set out to answer the following research questions: ➢ Why do college students like clothing brands on Facebook? ➢ How do college students perceive the communication of clothing brands? ➢ How do college students obtain gratifications from the posts of clothing brands? This way, by pursuing an understanding of the behaviours, feelings and opinions college students have towards clothing brands on Facebook, it has been possible to contribute with knowledge that clothing brands can use to uphold engagement among the consumers in the future. In terms of method, the study has pursued a constructionist stance, hence focusing on interpreting human processes, interactions and behaviour in order to gain an understanding and thus explain a version of reality. Specifically, a qualitative approach has been applied to obtain a rich and complex understanding of behaviour as well as the social context around it. A comprehensive set of data has been gathered through ten interviews with college students from various educations and of both sexes to obtain different perspectives on the subject from an otherwise homogeneous group of participants. The data has been transcribed, coded and analysed using a thematic approach because it suits research questions addressing people´s experiences, views, perceptions and understandings. The findings have been discusses within the context of relevant literature, hereunder theories about communication processes, uses and gratifications as well as Goffman´s (1969) sociological theory of self-presentation. They show that the primary reason for college students to like Facebook Pages of clothing brands is to receive the posts from them. The findings show that the college students seek and obtain information and entertainment gratifications from clothing brands in forms of new collections, inspiration to styles, humoristic content and promotions. However, they are concerned about receiving spam in their newsfeed, wherefore they evaluate the content of the brands to see if it is relevant before taking the action. Another reason for liking a Facebook Page is to support the brand. Some support brands on Facebook because they have a relationship to the people behind and others, because they like the concept. Also, some of the participants like clothing brands as identity objects used to establish their image on Facebook. Yet, the findings show that the college students are moving away from the latter behaviour and towards the first. The reason for this could be that they have been using Facebook for years and thus already have established their identities on the platform. Whereas the college students did not primarily like Facebook Pages for identity cultivation as suggested by previous research, impression management still influences how they behave. Regarding the communication of clothing brands, the findings show that the college students mostly engage with the posts they are able to relate to. Especially posts with content that appeals to their interests or values are appreciated. Moreover, they want more than just the products of the brands in their News Feed. They want the story behind presented in an authentic manner. The findings have several implications for clothing brands: First, only the clothing brands, which can provide the consumers with information and entertainment gratifications will be able to uphold engagement and thus be able to reach the consumers in a future social media landscape. Secondly, clothing brands that think of communication as transmission will experience difficulties in engaging the consumers. Brands must move towards a transactional mind-set and understand the personal field of experience that the audience posses. While this research can be said to provide notable insight, in terms of how and why consumers engage with clothing brands on Facebook, it has several limitations. First, the area of consumer behaviour on social media is undergoing a constant development. Therefore, the result presented in this paper might only be applicable in the near future. Also, the area has been investigated from a narrow empirical perspective. Including a larger sample size in the qualitative analysis might contribute with more perspectives on the phenomenon.

Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing

Anne Renner

Purpose Marketing researchers have usually studied consumers’ attachment to brands from an emotional bonding perspective. However, the purpose of this study is to show that attachment to objects is not only limited to bonding. Thus, the authors conceptualised the attachment theory from two perspectives: bonding-based and identity-based attachment. In addition, the study further seeks to identify the elements of each component and examine how these elements drive customer engagement on a brand’s Facebook page while assessing some consumer-related outcomes of customer engagement on Facebook. Design/methodology/approach Using an online survey, the authors examined antecedents of customer engagement on Facebook and the outcomes of engagement behaviours among 649 respondents. Structural equation modelling was used in analysing the data. Findings The results of the study show that consumers’ attachment to a brand drives them to engage the brand on the brand’s Facebook page. The results al...

In present-day scenario, when there is extreme competition among marketers, marketers are using different social networks to create brand community on social media web sites so as to enhance customer engagement and thus social networks have become an important gradient in their marketing mix. The purpose of the study is to understand the effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool to analyze the extent to which social media helps consumers in buying decision making. It was revealed that unlike age & occupation, gender had no impact on the frequency to visit social networking sites. For motive & reasons to visit social networking sites, it was revealed that all demographics i.e. gender, gender & occupation had an impact in determining the reasons for the visiting the social network sites. It was also found that occupation had impacted the respondents' perception & reliability of online reviews before making actual purchase. This study would facilitate the practicing social media marketers to understand and develop marketing strategy which would lead to desired customer engagement on brand communities on social media. Additional research with large sample size and deeper understanding of the constructs of customer engagement could explain the broader role of it.

Marisabel Castro

Purpose – Facebook is the most used Social Networking Site in the world. In this study, the researcher investigates the factors that motivate individuals to keep using Facebook throughout the years and compare if any of these drivers indicate different levels of commitment: brand engagement, brand loyalty and brand love towards the SNS. Design / Methodology / Approach – The approach to this research was qualitative and the results were the product of in-depth interviews with Facebook users who provided the information needed to achieve the research objectives. Findings – The findings of this study indicates that Facebook usage is motivated by the needs of: Social interaction, the need to belong and utility value. The indicators of brand commitment revealed were: time spent, brand trust, good perceptions of brand image and emotional attachment by the participants to Facebook. Originality / Value – This paper is the first of its kind that evaluates three concepts in the area of brand ...

GATR Journals

Objective-The purpose of our research was to better understand the potential different types of content have with regard to selected engagement indicators in interactions between users and brands on Facebook. This aspect is very important for e-business and e-commerce. The aim of the paper was to analyze and identify the relationships between the selected engagement indicators and types of content being added. Methodology/Technique-We examined a sample of 20 global airlines that have official accounts on this platform. The time horizon for data collection was twelve months of 2018. Therefore, we were able to work with data from 4,858 published posts. For each post, we identified the publication date, content type (photo / image, video, link, status), the number of engagement indicators (likes, comments, shares), and the recalculated engagement. The research made use of nonparametric statistics methods including the ANOVA and Kruskal-Wallis H test of difference. The resulting specific differences were analyzed using the Dunn test. Findings-Using the Kruskal-Wallis H and Dunn test methods we found that specific types of content dominate over the others. We found statistically significant differences in all comparisons of likes, shares, and comments. In all cases, these were in favor of video content type. The results point to several possibilities of future research in this field and specify possible theoretical and managerial implications. Novelty-Social media hide immense potential for businesses-consumers use social media every day where they are exposed to the content shared by companies. However, social media also presents huge challenges for businesses-an ever-changing space that is extremely noisy and crowded. Our paper addresses this issue on an academic level. The pace of change is very fast, and the current state of empirical knowledge is insufficient. Our paper seeks to fill in the gaps in knowledge and examine the content management on the social network Facebook for business purposes in more depth. Type of Paper: Empirical. JEL Classification: M31, M37.

Spyros Angelopoulos

Meliha Handzic

Management Research Review

quoc hung Pham

PurposeCustomer engagement is a concept that has emerged recently to capture customers' total set of behavioral activities toward a firm. The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of customer engagement behaviors on perceived relationship benefits and relationship outcomes.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey of members of a gaming Facebook brand community, resulting in 276 usable responses from gaming customers.FindingsCustomer engagement was divided into “Community Engagement Behaviors” (CEB) and “Transactional Engagement Behaviors” (TEB). In addition, three relationship benefits were identified: social benefits, entertainment benefits and economic benefits. The engagement behaviors largely influenced the benefits received. Furthermore, the mediation analysis results show that the influence of CEB on satisfaction is partially mediated by social benefits and entertainment benefits, while the effect of TEB on satisfaction is fully mediated through the same benefits...

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Social Media Use and Impact on Interpersonal Communication

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• First Online: 01 January 2015
• Cite this conference paper

• Yerika Jimenez 2 &
• Patricia Morreale 3  

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 529))

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• International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

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This research paper presents the findings of a research project that investigated how young adult interpersonal communications have changed since using social media. Specifically, the research focused on determining if using social media had a beneficial or an adverse effect on the development of interaction and communication skills of young adults. Results from interviews reveal a negative impact in young adult communications and social skills. In this paper young adult preferences in social media are also explored, to answer the question: Does social media usage affect the development of interaction and communication skills for young adults and set a basis for future adult communication behaviors?

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1 Introduction

Human interaction has changed drastically in the last 20 years, not only due to the introduction of the Internet, but also from social media and online communities. These social media options and communities have grown from being simply used to communicate on a private network into a strong culture that almost all individuals are using to communicate with others all over the world. We will concentrate on the impact that social media has on human communication and interaction among young adults, primarily college students. In today’s society, powerful social media platforms such as Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram (IG), and Pinterest have been the result of an evolution that is changing how humans communicate with each other. The big question we asked ourselves was how much has social media really impacted the way that humans communicate and interact with each other, and if so, how significant is the change of interpersonal interaction among young adults in the United States today?

The motivation behind this research has been personal experience with interaction and communication with friends and family; it had become difficult, sometimes even rare, to have a one-on-one conversation with them, without having them glancing at or interacting with their phone. Has social interaction changed since the introduction of advanced technology and primarily social media? In correlation with the research data collected in this study, it was concluded that many participants’ personal communication has decreased due social media influence encouraging them to have online conversations, as opposed to face-to-face, in-person conversations.

2 Related Work

The question of how social media affects social and human interaction in our society is being actively researched and studied. A literature review highlights the positive and negative aspects of social media interaction, as researchers battle to understand the current and future effects of social media interaction. A study done by Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto, suggests that the brain may interpret digital interaction in the same manner as in-person interaction, while others maintain that differences are growing between how we perceive one another online as opposed to in reality [ 1 ]. This means that young adults can interpret online communication as being real one-on-one communication because the brain will process that information as a reality. Another study revealed that online interaction helps with the ability to relate to others, tolerate differing viewpoints, and express thoughts and feeling in a healthy way [ 2 , 3 ]. Moreover a study executed by the National Institutes of Health found that youths with strong, positive face-to-face relationships may be those most frequently using social media as an additional venue to interact with their peers [ 4 ].

In contrast, research reveals that individuals with many friends may appear to be focusing too much on Facebook, making friends out of desperation rather than popularity, spending a great deal of time on their computer ostensibly trying to make connections in a computer-mediated environment where they feel more comfortable rather than in face-to-face social interaction [ 5 ]. Moreover, a study among college freshman revealed that social media prevents people from being social and networking in person [ 6 ].

3 Experimental Design

This research study was divided into two parts during the academic year 2013–2014. Part one, conducted during fall semester 2013, had the purpose of understanding how and why young adults use their mobile devices, as well as how the students describe and identify with their mobile devices. This was done by distributing an online survey to several Kean University student communities: various majors, fraternity and sorority groups, sports groups, etc. The data revealed that users primarily used their mobile devices for social media and entertainment purposes. The surveyed individuals indicated that they mainly accessed mobile apps like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram, to communicate, interact, and share many parts of their daily life with their friends and peers.

Based on the data collected during part one, a different approach and purpose was used for part two, with the goal being to understand how social media activities shape the communication skills of individuals and reflects their attitudes, attention, interests, and activities. Additionally, research included how young adult communication needs change through the use of different social media platforms, and if a pattern can be predicted from the users’ behavior on the social media platforms. Part two of this research was conducted by having 30 one-on-one interviews with young adults who are college students. During this interview key questions were asked in order to understand if there is a significant amount of interpersonal interaction between users and their peers. Interpersonal interaction is a communication process that involves the exchange of information, feelings and meaning by means of verbal or non-verbal messages. For the purposes of this paper, only the data collected during spring 2014 is presented.

4 Data Collection

Through interviews, accurate results of the interaction of young adults with social media were collected. These interviews involved 30 one-on-one conversations with Kean University students. Having one-on-one interviews with participants allowed for individual results, first responses from the participant, without permitting responses being skewed or influenced by other participants, such as might occur in group interviews. It also allows users to give truthful answers, in contrast to an online or paper survey, as they might have second thoughts about an answer and change it. The one-on-one interviews consisted of ten open-ended questions, which were aimed to answer, and ultimately determine, how social media interaction involuntarily influences, positively or negatively, an individual’s attitude, attention, interests, and social/personal activities. The largest motive behind the questions was to determine how individual communication skills, formally and informally, have changed from interacting with various social media platforms. The interviews, along with being recorded on paper, were also video and audio-recorded. The average time for each interview was between two to ten minutes. These interviews were held in quiet labs and during off-times, so that the responses could be given and recorded clearly and without distraction (Fig.  1 ). A total of 19 females and 11 males participated, with ages ranging from 19 to 28 years old.

Female participant during one-on-one interview

After conducting the interviews and analyzing the data collected, it was determined that the age when participants, both male and female, first began to use social media ranged between 9 to 17 years. It was found that, generally, males began to use social media around the age of 13, whereas females started around the age of 12. The average age for males starting to use social media is about 12.909 with a standard deviation of 2.343. For females, the average age is 12.263 with a standard deviation of 1.627. From this, we can determine that males generally begin to use social media around the age of 13, whereas females begin around the age of 12.

After determining the average age of when participants started using social media, it was necessary to find which social media platforms they had as a basis; meaning which social media platform they first used. MySpace was the first social media used by twenty-three participants, followed by Facebook with three users, and Mi Gente by only one user, with two participants not using social media at all. It was interesting to find that all of the participants who started using Myspace migrated to Facebook. The reasoning provided was that “everyone [they knew] started to use Facebook.” According to the participants, Facebook was “more interactive” and was “extremely easy to use.” The participants also stated that Myspace was becoming suitable for a younger user base, and it got boring because they needed to keep changing their profile backgrounds and modifying their top friends, which caused rifts or “popularity issues” between friends. After finding out which platform they started from, it was also essential to find out which platform they currently use. However, one platform that seemed to be used by all participants to keep up-to-date with their friends and acquaintances was Instagram, a picture and video-based social media platform. Another surprising finding was that many users did not use Pinterest at all, or had not even heard of the platform. After determining which social media platforms the users migrated to, it was essential to identify what caused the users to move from one platform to another. What are the merits of a certain platform that caused the users to migrate to it, and what are the drawbacks of another platform that caused users to migrate from it or simply not use it all?

4.1 Social Interaction Changes

For some participants social interaction had a chance for a positive outcome, while others viewed it in a more negative aspect. The participants were asked if their social interactions have changed since they were first exposed to social media (Table  1 ). One participant stated that “it is easier to just look at a social media page to see how friends and family are doing rather than have a one-on-one interaction.” As for people’s attitudes, they would rather comment or “like” a picture than stop and have a quick conversation. On the other hand, another participant felt that social media helped them when talking and expressing opinions on topics that they generally would not have discussed in person. Moreover, the participants are aware of the actions and thing that they are doing but continue to do it because they feel comfortable and did not desire to have one-on-one interactions with people.

The participants were also asked to explain how social media changed their communication and interactions during the years of using social media (Table  2 ). The data shows that participants interact less in person because they are relating more via online pictures and status. For other participants, it made them more cautious and even afraid of putting any personal information online because it might cause problems or rifts in their life. On the contrary, some participants stated that their communication and interaction is the same; however, they were able to see how it had changed for the people that are around them. A participant stated that “internet/social media is a power tool that allows people to be whatever they want and in a way it creates popularity, but once again they walk around acting like they do not know you and ‘like’ your pictures the next day.”

5 Discussion

The data illustrated in this paper shows how much the introduction and usage of social media has impacted the interaction and communication of young adults. The future of interaction and communication was also presented as a possibility, if the current trend continues with young adults and social media or online communities. This raises the notion of possibly not having any social, in-person interaction and having all communication or interaction online and virtually with all family and friends.

6 Conclusion

Referring back to the question asked during the introduction: how much has social media impacted the way we communicate and interact with each other? After reviewing all the findings, seeing the relationship individuals have with their mobile phones, and comparing social media platforms, it is clear that many young adults have an emotional attachment with their mobile device and want interaction that is quick and to the point, with minimal “in-person” contact. Many young adults prefer to use their mobile device to send a text message or interact via social media. This is due to their comfort level being higher while posting via social media applications, as opposed to in-person interaction. To successfully and accurately answer the question: yes, social media has had a very positive and negative effect on the way we communicate and interact with each other. However, how effective is this method of “virtual” communication and interaction in the real world?

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Jimenez, Y., Morreale, P. (2015). Social Media Use and Impact on Interpersonal Communication. In: Stephanidis, C. (eds) HCI International 2015 - Posters’ Extended Abstracts. HCI 2015. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 529. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21383-5_15

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