When do customers engage in brand pages? Effects of social presence

Abstract

Purpose Drawing upon the social presence theory, this paper aims to propose three social presence variables in the brand page context (the brand page as a medium, the presence of other customers and interaction with the brand page manager) and to test their effects on customer engagement behavior (CEB) and customer-brand identification (CBI). Design/methodology/approach A total of 340 responses were collected via an online research platform and analyzed using structural equation modeling analysis. Findings The results revealed that both the social presence of the brand page and the interaction with the brand page manager are positively associated with CEB, whereas that of other customers negatively influences CEB, which in turn, positively affects CBI. Research limitations/implications This paper presents the underlying process of driving customers’ engagement activities and building psychological closeness between customers and brands by applying social presence theory and social identity theory to Facebook brand pages. Practical implications To enhance customers’ experiences on Facebook brand pages, practitioners should visualize brand page managers through diverse types of postings. Brand page managers need to balance the presence of others, as well as bring a sense of human-likeness on the pages using storytelling strategies. Originality/value This research sheds light on the human side of a non-human world. The results suggest that the sense of a human presence in virtual brand communities is essential to engage customers with online activities toward brands while also building a closer customer–brand relationship.

Examining consumer participation on brand microblogs in China: perspectives from elaboration likelihood model, commitment–trust theory and social presence

“…Third, social presence was combined with the present ELM, indicating that different levels of social presence would influence perceived trust and participation toward brand microblogs based on both central and peripheral routes. Although previous studies have found that social presence can be antecedents of users' perception or behaviors toward social media (Lu et al, 2016;Song and Moon, 2019), this study provides evidence showing the moderating effect of social presence in an extended ELM model. The effect of trust toward brand microblog on consumer participation will differ according to the level of social presence.…”

How live chat assistants drive travel consumers’ attitudes, trust and purchase intentions

“…In the context of e-commerce, social presence has been investigated as an important element that can affect online consumers' loyalty, (Cyr et al, 2007), attitude (Hassanein and Head, 2007), trust (Ogonowski et al, 2014;Ye et al, 2019), experience and satisfaction (McLean and Osei-Frimpong, 2017;Song et al, 2019), as well as online purchase intentions .…”

Mapping the themes and intellectual structure of customer engagement: a bibliometric analysis

“…Similarly, social presence theory has been introduced to discuss the logic behind social interaction and interpersonal relationships (Short et al, 1976), which later on became popular in the communication and information system domains (e.g. Lu et al, 2016;Schrum et al, 2012), but is being discussed in the CE context (Busalim et al, 2021;Hayes et al, 2020;Song et al, 2019). Psychological ownership theory has been originally offered to further the discourse on ownership toward organizations (Pierce et al, 2001), but the theory is gaining momentum in the domain of digital marketing (Morewedge et al, 2020), and specifically CE (Li et al, 2021).…”