Enhancing Brand Image in the Digital Era: Evidence from Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in Indonesia

Abstract

This study aims to validate the essential antecedents of brand image enhancement in the digital era, based on a schematic theory. This study involved 400 respondents from four capital cities in Java, Indonesia, which comprise Surabaya, Jakarta, Bandung, and Yogyakarta, based on a quota sampling technique. The findings indicate that the quality of websites and social media sites may have no direct effects on brand image; any effects are transmitted through a serial mediation of brand awareness and E-WOM. Explicitly, the effect of a website’s quality on brand image is fully mediated, while social media’s quality effect on brand image is partially mediated through brand awareness and E-WOM. This study extends the current literature related to SMEs’ brand image. Also, this study offers practical recommendations for several stakeholders interested in empowering SMEs, including the government, entrepreneurship-based universities, and the SMEs themselves, who are all seeking strategies to enhance brand image while utilizing digital platforms such as social media and websites.

Brand Positioning as a mediator in the relationship between Social Media Quality and Brand Loyalty An Applied Study on the Private Universities in Egypt

“…In addition, there is a positive relationship between Social media quality and brand positioning, and the effect of social media quality is (85.5 %) in the variation of brand positioning in the model. These results are in agreement with previous studies (Taiminen and Karjaluoto, 2015;Chung et al, 2008). 4-The model has a high ability to predict and explain brand loyalty through brand positioning, and this was proved by the validity of the second hypothesis (H2) through the value of (R-Sq = 0.767).…”

“…Repeating purchases are affected by consumers' attitudes and experiences. Social media helps companies to engage with their customers in conversations through their blogs and forums, identifying their brands' influencers, personalizing their customer' s experience on such platforms (Constantinides, Romero, and Gómez Boria, 2008), configuring customers' perceptions regarding the brand (Suryani, Fauzi and Nurhadi, 2021), and encouraging customers to share their information with other peers, which create brand awareness that can influence customers' preferences, attitudes, purchase intention, and brand loyalty (Kim et al, 2018). For example, the information available on private universities' social media channels can persuade prospective students to enroll in (Kim & Eik, 2014).…”

“…On the other hand, the digital platforms have changed the preferences for media consumption of the majority of people, which enforced companies to be in Google to have a presence in the digital era, and give greater concern to the quality of social media platforms in terms of ease of communication, credibility, content quality, and relevance (Helal, Ozuem, and Lancaster, 2018). Social media channels as digital channels can contribute more to institutions than traditional media by exposing their brands heavily to customers (Suryani, Fauzi and Nurhadi, 2021), communicating brand positioning, and keeping those institutions more competitive (Taiminen and Karjaluoto, 2015). The institutions depend on such platforms for communicating with their customers and affecting their buying decisions through the trust generated in such platforms, which encourage private universities to move their brands to the social media environment (Baum, 2019), as an attempt to increase their visibility (Gunduz, 2015), and build a strong emotional relationship with their students and make their brands the first choice for the students when they decide to study (Tomiya, 2010).…”

Developing and testing a measurement scale for SMEs’ website quality (SMEs-WebQ): Evidence from Indonesia

“…In short, brand awareness reflects consumers’ ability to memorize a particular brand within a product category [ 80 ]. Brand awareness is pivotal in the consumers’ purchasing decision-making process [ 74 , 79 , 81 ], as purchasing behavior is preceded by four processes: awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, and conviction [ 82 ].…”

The Mediating Effect of Consumer Brand Engagement on the Relationship between Social Media Marketing and Repurchase Intention

“…Thus, when brands offer services tailored to consumer preferences, this can have a positive impact on perceived brand usefulness, along with increasing their affection for the brand (Godey et al, 2016;Phan et al, 2011). & Kim, 2011Hennig-Thurau et al, 2004;Suryani et al, 2021). EWOM has a positive influence on consumers' evaluation of services and goods (Schulze et al, 2015), which helps attract consumers to invest more cognitive effort in reading E-WOM (Kudeshia & Kumar, 2017).…”