Literary communities in social media: the influence of motivations on engagement and purchase intention in women

Abstract

A decreasing trend in young people's recreational reading habits has been observed worldwide. On the other hand, young people's daily use of social media has increased dramatically in recent years. With this evolution, different literary communities and influencers also emerged on social media.
 It is necessary to understand the motivations that lead users to engage in social media to maintain an active and involved community. Researchers have already discussed a core set of motivations to participate in online communities. However, most studies focus on brand communities, and few analyze literary communities' specific cases.
 There are various motivations for participating in communities. However, we highlight the social motivations (meeting people, being part of the community, sharing information, listening to other opinions) and hedonic ones (because participating in them is a pleasant, fun, enjoyable activity).
 Engagement in social media can be measured through a passive attitude of lurkers who only see published content or an active attitude when users comment and publish content on social media, generating discussion and interaction in the community.
 On the other hand, some studies in other areas show that intention and propensity to purchase can be affected by many factors, such as social and hedonic motivations. Could also these motivations influence intention to purchase books?
 This study aims to study the influence of hedonic and social motivations to participate in literary communities on social media engagement and book purchase intention. A quantitative methodology was used, with a sample of N= 272 female participants in literary communities on social media. The data was analyzed through the modeling of structural equations by the AMOS software. Results show that social motivations are positively related to the level of engagement in literary communities on social media. Additionally, this study revealed that hedonic motivations influence book purchase intention.