دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی ارتباط شکاف بین رسانه های اجتماعی و وفاداری به برند رفتاری - الزویر 2018

ABSTRACT

Integrating several streams of theoretical reasoning such as social identity theory and customer engagement theory, this study examines the relationship between consumer responses in social media networks and behavioral brand loyalty in the context of Japanese professional sports: football and baseball. Data were collected from 309 panel registrants of an online research panel service. Based on the analysis, user characteristics as an opinion seeker and the entertainment value of social media pages were found to positively influence online brand community identification which in turn had a positive effect on brand-related social media engagement. Further, brand-related social media engagement and team identification, a type of consumer-brand identification, simultaneously affected behavioral brand loyalty. The theoretical model and results reinforced the importance of brand-related social media engagement toward behavioral brand loyalty, and added new insights into the antecedents of consumer engagement in the brand-related use of social media.

6. CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

This study has several limitations that can be overcome in future research. First, we did not measure behavioral brand loyalty with longitudinal behavioral data. Although we asked the respondents to report the aggregated number of games attended in the current season (past eight months), an important question arises as to whether brand-related SocME can predict future behavioral brand loyalty over a longer period of time. Future research can be advanced by longitudinal studies that relate consumers’ subjective evaluations of social media activities to longitudinal behavioral data in order to demonstrate a more precise effect of brand-related SocME on behavioral brand loyalty over time.

Second, the current study only explained 14% of the variance in behavioral brand loyalty. While we examined the impact of three control variables (team identification, television sports viewing, and the length of time as a fan) on behavioral brand loyalty, we did not include other variables that might influence behavioral brand loyalty. Psychological constructs such as customer commitment (Bansal et al., 2004) and customer-based brand equity (Keller, 1993) may have impacted the study results. Future research should test the simultaneous effects of brand-related SocME and additional psychological variables on behavioral brand loyalty.