Social Media Marketing: Consumer Engagement on Firm Generated Content and its Effect on Brand Attitude

Abstract

By using Bohus as a case study, this paper seeks to add to the literature of social media marketing by looking at different drivers of consumer engagement for firm generated content. This particular paper addresses firm generated content on Facebook and its effect on brand attitude. Based on a review of relevant literature, as well as a prestudy, we have identified inherent gaps in the literature and propose the following research question: What drives consumer engagement in different types of firm generated content on Facebook, and to what extent does it affect brand attitude? Based on our research question and presented literature review, six hypotheses regarding brand attitude and personal- and social engagement have been created. Further, we have developed a research framework which explains the relationship between these variables. The framework is based on the belief that the different variables will form a certain effect on online engagement and brand attitude. For the method of our study we use a factorial design to measure the effects of our independent variables to be able to find inferences of causality. To test the research framework empirically we conducted an online experiment where respondents were randomly assigned to one of eight manipulated firm generated content. Variables that were manipulated were inspiration (in environment vs. not in environment), offer (20% vs. 50%) and total number of likes on firm generated content (11k. vs. 4000k). For the category social engagement, we found that consumers engage with firm generated content containing inspiration by pressing like. When investigating drivers of this engagement, social identification was found to have a positive effect. This implicates that managers need to know their target group well enough to create content that identify with consumers interests and personality. For the category personal engagement, there was no positive effect for pressing link for firm generated content containing offer. However, we found a negative correlation for pressing like. This emphasizes the importance of inspiration within firm generated content and implies that consumers are not as interested in the offer itself but rather the social value it brings by socially engaging. Lastly, our study affirms a correlation between consumers brand attitude and engagement for firm generated content, where change in brand attitude has the biggest correlations. This indicates that managers can use firm generated content to change consumers brand attitude, and with this increase their online engagement. We also found that higher promotion offers in firm generated content generates greater increase in brand attitude and number of website visits as long as the content is found informative. Overall, our findings give insight of how to engage with consumers, spread information and learn from and about a company´s audience. This can help managers to better understand the effects of marketing efforts in social media and build positive brand attitudes, further increasing sales and profits.