“What drives loyal fans of brand pages to take action? The effects of self-expansion and flow on loyal page fans’ sharing and creation activities”

Abstract

Consumer-driven sharing and creation activities are valuable engagement activities as they help spread awareness and interaction for brands on social media. Loyal fans of brand pages are an important audience for brand-related social media engagement, as they are more likely to recommend and advocate for brands. However, little is known about what motivates loyal fans to engage in these valuable activities. This study takes a novel approach by examining self-expansion as a driver that prompts loyal fans to action. When brands offer self-expansive opportunities on their pages, in the form of new knowledge, new perspectives (e.g., awareness on social issues) and exciting experiences, fans may incorporate these in their sense of self (self-page inclusion) and reciprocate by investing their own resources to brand pages. A survey was conducted with 238 millennial users who have a favorite brand page on Instagram. The findings show that the more fans gain opportunities for self-expansion from their favorite pages, the more likely they are to share and create brand-related content. Brand page flow and self-page inclusion are also important drivers. Further, specific page experiences are identified that may enhance the effects of these drivers. Managerial implications are included on how to apply these findings to social media content strategy.

Repurchase intentions of new e-commerce users in the COVID-19 context: The mediation role of brand love

“…These results are somewhat different from those of previous studies involving brand experience. Specifically, brand experience in this study had the highest brand cognitive experience of brand attachment ( B = 0.305, t -value = 5.151, p < 0.001), and the results of some prior studies were similar to those of this study ( Lee and Kim, 2020 ; Rodrigues and Brandão, 2020 ; Nikolinakou et al, 2021 ). However, there are also some studies with discrepant results; for example, Huang (2017) argues that sensory experience has the highest impact on brand attachment.…”

Luxury brand attachment: Predictors, moderators and consequences

“…Social psychologists also propose a self‐related motive called “self‐improvement” relevant to a person's desire for “self‐expansion” and “self‐verification” (Taylor et al., 1995). Few marketing studies on consumer brand attachment (e.g., Hung & Lu, 2018; Malär et al., 2011; Nikolinakou et al., 2021) use these theories to explain emotional connections to a brand. However, the central line of work on human attachment argues that the sense of safety is the core of attachment.…”

How does language intensity of brand fan word-of-mouth (WOM) affect customers' willingness to adopt WOM? An empirical study based on psychological resistance theory

“…Nowadays, on brand-related social media platforms, fans are more likely to post positive WOM and recommend a brand to others (Nikolinakou et al, 2021). Even when a brand is in crisis, brand fans may act as a crisis information source and influence the attitude of other fans towards the crisis (Lim and Brown-Devlin, 2021).…”

“…Nowadays, on brand-related social media platforms, fans are more likely to post positive WOM and recommend a brand to others (Nikolinakou et al. , 2021).…”

“…Currently, the promotion of brand fan WOM recommendations is receiving attention from both academics and practitioners (Nikolinakou et al, 2021), but the characteristics of brand fan WOM and their subsequent impact have not been thoroughly investigated. Kwon and Mattila (2015) suggested that fan WOM may be more trustworthy but may also be perceived as biased advice.…”