The Impacts of Electronic Word of Mouth on Brand Equity in the Context of Social Media

Abstract

Social media has become the driving force which transforms the web into an interactive information and communications technology device. Social media has a significant role in influencing customer's choice in selecting products and services based on the customers' feedbacks that appeared in the weblogs, web sites, online boards and other kinds of user-generated content (Raman, 2009). It is indeed important to remember that brand equity is no longer valued by large sums of money that companies invest; instead customers are dictating the value of brand equity by what they are saying to each other. Therefore, this study will focus on evaluating the roles of various brand equity constructs (including brand loyalty, brand association, brand awareness and brand image) in mediating the interrelation among electronic word of mouth and the dimensions of brand equity in the context of social media. There were total of 300 usable questionnaires were collected in this research. The finding revealed that there is an indirect inter-relationship between electronic word of mouth and the dimension of brand equity, mediated by the respective various brand equity constructs.