Brand Management in the Era of Social Media: Social Visibility of Consumption and Customer Brand Identification

Abstract

Despite consumers’ increasing use of social media channels to make their travel experiences more visible to people within their social networks, brand management research in the tourism literature lacks a clear understanding of how social visibility of consumption affects consumer perceptions of their relationships with the brand. Drawing upon social identity theory and the theory of conspicuous consumption, this study extends the current brand management literature by investigating the role of consumption’s social visibility in the formation of customer brand identification in the era of social media. Using the airline industry as the study context, this study suggests that social visibility of consumption leads to cognitive, affective, and evaluative identifications. The results also indicate that the three components of customer brand identification interact with each other in realizing positive word of mouth communication. The findings highlight the significant benefits of making customers’ travel experiences socially visible to people around them.

The Effect of Social Media Marketing, Word of Mouth, and Effectiveness of Advertising on Brand Awareness and Intention to Buy

“…As a marketing tool, social networks offer significant opportunities to build brand consumer relationships in marketing (Vukasovic, 2013). In recent years, many businesses have seen social media as one of the most effective ways to communicate and empower consumers to create distinctive brand identities and increase consumer-brand communications (So et al, 2017). Hartzel et al (2011) have noted that interactive marketing strategies which are using social media links such as Facebook and Twitter will positively affect brand image and create a leverage effect between brand and consumer.…”

Kim Olduğunu Görebiliyoruz! Tüketimin Sosyal Görünürlüğünün Tüketici Marka Kimliği, Ağızdan Ağıza İletişim ve Marka Sadakatine Yansımaları

“…The social visibility of consumption supports the perception that the consumer is likely to be socially accepted by reference groups such as friends, family, and colleagues (Josiassen and Assaf 2013). In other words, the social visibility of consumption is in line with conspicuous consumption, which includes consumers' purchasing products from prestigious brands to improve their social status (So et al, 2017). O' Cass and McEven (2004) noted that social appearance of consumption is an important dimension of consumption for demonstration purposes.…”

“…Today, the social media is one of the most common channels of communication that the customers use to show their social identities or the brands they identify themselves to express their status (So et al, 2017;Simon and Tossan, 2018). Social media is "an environment in which people share common interests and share their thoughts, comments and ideas" (Weber, 2007:4).…”

“…This viral effect among social media users allows the shared experience of the product or brand to [2208] be discussed and become known very quickly among a large number of users (Tsimonis and Dimitriadis, 2014;Kumar et al, 2007). So et al (2017) have identified that social media is highly functional in the way that consumers are able to visually transfer their travel experiences to people around them. From the perspective of consumers with a conservative social identity, social media provides visualization of consumption habits and interaction with other consumers.…”

“…In the second part, there are 4 items about the social visibility of consumption. Three statements about the social visibility of consumption were taken from the study of So et al (2017). In the third part, there are 7 items about consumer-brand identity.…”