Consumer Brand Engagement in Social Media: Conceptualization, Scale Development and Validation

Abstract

In the last three decades an influential research stream has emerged, which highlights the dynamics of focal consumer/brand relationships. Specifically, more recently the 'consumer brand engagement' (CBE) concept has been postulated to more comprehensively reflect the nature of consumers' particular interactive brand relationships, relative to traditional concepts, including 'involvement.' However, despite the growing scholarly interest regarding the undertaking of marketing research addressing 'engagement,' studies have been predominantly exploratory in nature; thus generating a lack of empirical research in this area to date. By developing and validating a CBE scale in specific social media settings, we address this identified literature gap.Specifically, we conceptualize CBE as a consumer's positively valenced brand-related cognitive, emotional and behavioral activity during or related to focal consumer/brand interactions. We derive three CBE dimensions, including cognitive processing, affection, and activation. Within three different social media contexts, we employ exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses to develop a reliable, 10-item CBE scale, which we proceed to validate within a nomological net of conceptual relationships and a rival model. The findings suggest that while consumer brand 'involvement' acts as a CBE antecedent, consumer 'self-brand connection' and 'brand usage intent' represent key CBE consequences; thus providing a platform for further research in this emerging area. We conclude with an overview of key managerial and scholarly implications arising from this research.Keywords: Consumer brand engagement, social media, scale development, structural equation modeling 2 IntroductionIn the last three decades a powerful research stream has emerged, which highlights the nature and dynamics pertaining to specific consumer/brand relationships (Fournier 1998;Aaker, Fournier and Brasel 2004). Within this emerging body of work, consumer brand 'involvement,' which reflects a consumer's level of interest in, and personal relevance of a brand, has gained significant attention (Zaichkowsky 1985(Zaichkowsky , 1994Coulter et al. 2003). However, despite the important insights gleaned from 'involvement' research, more recently scholarly emphasis is shifting to concepts and theoretical perspectives, which explain or predict the dynamics characterizing focal interactive consumer/brand relationships more explicitly, including in specific social media settings Third, we offer a more parsimonious 10-item measurement tool comprising three CBE dimensions, relative to Calder et al.'s proposed eight-dimensional view of OE comprising 37 items.

Strategic drivers, anticipated and unanticipated outcomes of customer engagement

“…To illustrate, Hollebeek, Glynn, and Brodie's (2014) 'consumer brand engagement' scale comprises three dimensions consistent with Brodie et al's (2011) tripartite perspective of engagement. Others, including So, King, andSparks (2014), Calder et al (2009) and Vivek et al (2012), extend this generic tripartite model to incorporate explicit recognition of individuals' social connections and interactions.…”

Instagram, Facebook or Twitter: Which Engages Best? A Comparative Study of Consumer Brand Engagement and Social Commerce Purchase Intention

“…Consumer brand engagement scale (Hollebeek et al, 2014) that consists of 3 dimensions and 10 statements and social commerce purchase intention scale consists of one dimension and 4 statements. The scales were valid and reliable.…”

“…Finally, activation is "a consumer's level of energy, effort and time spent on a brand in a particular consumer/brand interaction." (Hollebeek et al, 2014) Engagement in social platforms includes how consumers use, share and talk about the content related to brand and company (Kırcova & Enginkaya, 2015). The first expectation of brands that use social media marketing is users' adaptation and contribution to the content and engaging with the brand (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014).…”

“…Consumer brand engagement (CBE) represents the specific brand interactions of consumers' in cognitive, emotional, and behavioral dimensions (Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014). This engagement can be observed through social media networks (Boyd & Ellison, 2007).…”

Journal of Brand Management – Year end review 2016

“…More recently, the concept of customer or consumer brand engagement (CBE) is an area of increased interest along with the development of some early conceptual models (see Hollebeek, 2011a, b;Gambetti et al, 2012;Hollebeek et al, 2014).…”