How do customers engage in social media-based brand communities: The moderator role of the brand's country of origin?

Yu Huang, Xu Zhang and Hong Zhu

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 2022, vol. 68, issue C

Abstract: Across the globe, companies increasingly use social media-based brand communities (SMBBC) to facilitate customer engagement (CE). This study clarifies the relationship between brand trust and CE in SMBBC, which is often inconsistent in previous literature. Drawing on the uses and gratifications theory, we examine the motivations that drive customers' active and passive engagement behaviors. Additionally, this study employs multi-group analysis to compare the differences in the customer engagement process concerning the brand's country of origin. The empirical results demonstrate that brand trust is an antecedent to customer engagement in a long-term relationship. Brand affiliation, entertainment, and investigation prompt customers' active and passive engagement behaviors; the opportunity-seeking only encourages the passive engagement, but the motivation of conversation prompts neither active nor passive behaviors of the customers. Notably, there is no significant difference in Chinese customer engagement between domestic and foreign brands on Sina Weibo. The research enriches the understanding of customer engagement in SMBBC and provides valuable insights for international brands keen on the Chinese market.

Keywords: Customer engagement; Brand trust; Country of origin; SMBBC (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969698922001722
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:joreco:v:68:y:2022:i:c:s0969698922001722

DOI: 10.1016/j.jretconser.2022.103079

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services is currently edited by Harry Timmermans

More articles in Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().