Creating Consumer-Based Brand Equity With Social Media Content Marketing

Due to the growing importance of company-initiated online brand communities (OBCs) like Facebook brand fan pages, details about consumers' perceptions of these sites need to be linked to their effects on customer-based brand equity. This research builds on Keller and Lehmann's brand value chain as the theoretical foundation and adopts the theory to fit the social media context. This approach enables the simultaneous evaluation of the impact of consumer online content perceptions on both fan-page engagement and consumers' brand mindset. Specifically, this research investigates the consumer-based outcomes of perceptions of content's vividness and interactivity as well as the effects of perceived information and entertainment value of brand posts. In addition, this empirical study evaluates the consequences of positive brand fans' comments for consumer online engagement (e.g., liking), brand awareness, image, and attitude. Results show that consumer-oriented brand pages can stimulate positive offline brand engagement such as loyalty and recommendation. </jats:p>