An empirical study of brand fan page engagement behaviors

Abstract

Nowadays, numerous companies present themselves on social networking sites (SNSs) by establishing brand communities to maintain continuous interaction with existing and potential customers to influence their brand choices, promote the products and services, and cultivate brand loyalty. However, the research into online brand communities is mainly centered on that utilizing the platforms of websites instead of using social media platforms. Thus, it calls for more studies to investigate consumer brand fan page engagement behavior to increase their fan base and further induce a fan's purchase behavior. By adopting the perspectives of co-production and social identity theory, this study endeavors to investigate the impact of customer perceived value derived from engaging in brand fan pages on their identification with and stickiness to an online brand community in the SNS-based context. The target population of this study is consumers who have ever participated in an online brand community. Data was collected through a web-based survey. After deleting 36 incomplete responses, 524 usable responses remained for further analysis, with an effective sample rate of 93.57%. The results revealed that utilitarian value, hedonic value, and monetary value separately exerted a significantly positive effect on community identification. Utilitarian value and hedonic value also had significantly positive effects on community stickiness. Moreover, community identification was positively related to community stickiness. Community identification was found to have significantly positive influences on both word-of-mouth and repurchase intention. Furthermore, community stickiness exerted a significantly positive effect on word-of-mouth and repurchase intention. This study confirms the importance of perceived value on enhancing consumers' identification with and their stickiness to online brand communities. Therefore, businesses should provide consumers with the value they desired to cultivate customer loyalty to their brand fan pages.