Role of content strategy in social media brand communities: a case of higher education institutes in India

Abstract

PurposeThe aim of this study is to attempt to understand the role of content strategy followed by leading higher education institutes in India which have created brand community on social media web sites to initiate and enhance customer engagement. The impact of content strategy variables – content type, posting agility, posting day and content context on number of likes and number of comments, which were manifest variables for customer engagement was assessed here.Design/methodology/approachThis study follows a positivistic paradigm and employs case study research design. The data were collected by netnography method from brand communities on social networking web sites. The data were collected on a longitudinal basis for one year. Ten brand communities were tracked for the period and the analysis is based on total 1,440 posts made by brands during this period.FindingsThe content type and content agility were found to have significant impact on number of likes and comments, which were treated as manifest variables for customer engagement. The two‐way interaction indicated that content type and content context had significant impact on number of likes and comments.Research limitations/implicationsIt is one of the first attempts to characterize the relationship between a firm's content strategy of its BC on social networking sites and the customer engagement. This study identifies various manifest variables for both the content strategy of the firm and the customer engagement.Practical implicationsThis study would facilitate practicing community managers and content managers to understand and develop content strategy which would lead to desired customer engagement on brand communities created on social media.Originality/valueWith the application of this study's results, an organization should be able to avoid misuse of its social media marketing efforts, and should be able to focus on its content strategy, which maximises customer engagement on its brand community.

The effect of social media communication on consumer perceptions of brands

“…However, the results show that brand attitude has a stronger effect on brand equity for the non-alcoholic beverages industry than on either the clothing or mobile network operator industry. This can be explained in terms of the degree of consumer involvement with the form of social media advertising used by the industries (Chauhan and Pillai 2013). The most common social media advertising strategy used by the brands of the non-alcoholic beverages industry was to elicit UGC and build positive brand associations.…”

“…Social networking through online media can be understood as a variety of digital sources of information that are created, initiated, circulated, and consumed by Internet users as a way to educate one another about products, brands, services, personalities and issues (Chauhan and Pillai 2013). Companies are now aware of the imminent need to focus on developing personal two-way relationships with consumers to foster interactions (Li and Bernoff 2011).…”

The Role of Content Strategy in Social Media on Brand Post’s Popularity: A Case of Higher Education Institutions in Turkey

“…Users on Facebook create their own profile and typically invite others into their networks (Ellison et al, 2011). A brand can also build its presence in the form of a "Page", a feature which was launched by Facebook in 2007 (Chauhan & Pillai, 2013). Approximately 65 million business pages are active on Facebook in some way (Smith, 2017).…”

“…Some brand posts attract many people and become increasingly popular, while others are ignored by fans (Chua & Banerjee, 2015). Thus, brands face the challenge of developing and sharing content that builds and sustains the popularity of its posts on social media sites (Chauhan & Pillai, 2013). Similarly, higher education institutions as brands have to design their digital content strategy in such a way that it expands its relationship with their audience.…”

Women in business and social media: Implications for female entrepreneurship in emerging countries

“…3. Build brand loyalty (60%) (De Vries et al, 2012;De Vries and Carlson, 2014;Chauhan and Pillai, 2013;Gamboa and Gonçalves, 2014;Tsimonis and Dimitriadis, 2014;Vernuccio et al, 2015;Zavattaro et al, 2015). 4.…”