Conversation, storytelling, or consumer interaction and participation? The impact of brand-owned social media content marketing on consumers’ brand perceptions and attitudes
Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing
ISSN: 2040-7122
Article publication date: 15 June 2021
Issue publication date: 15 July 2021
Abstract
Purpose
This paper studies the relationships among consumers’ perceptions of brand personality, consumers’ brand attitudes and brand-owned social media content marketing (SMCM). The moderating effect of the brand content relevancy was also assessed.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual model was established and examined using two experiments with a total of 363 participants. Hierarchical regression analysis and an analysis of variance were performed to test seven research hypotheses.
Findings
Results show that the three forms of brand-owned SMCM, namely: conversation, storytelling and customer interaction and participation, are positively correlated with consumers’ brand personality perceptions and brand attitudes. Also, consumers’ perceptions of brand personality can partially mediate the relationship between brand-owned content marketing and consumers’ brand attitudes. Furthermore, the brand content relevancy does not show a moderating effect on the relationship between content marketing and consumers’ brand personality perceptions or brand attitudes.
Originality/value
First, a framework was established to delineate those paths by which owned social media content marketing (OSMCM) influences consumers’ attitudes towards a brand. Second, the study demonstrates the importance of conversation as a powerful method of OSMCM. Third, with respect to content in marketing strategies, firms do not need to confine themselves to a narrow scope of content or information that is closely related to the brands alone.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank members of our research group for their assistance in the data collection. Thanks for the support by the Key Projects of Province Social Science of Hunan (19ZDB004).
Declaration of interest statement: No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Citation
He, A.-Z., Cai, Y., Cai, L. and Zhang, Y. (2021), "Conversation, storytelling, or consumer interaction and participation? The impact of brand-owned social media content marketing on consumers’ brand perceptions and attitudes", Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, Vol. 15 No. 3, pp. 419-440. https://doi.org/10.1108/JRIM-08-2019-0128
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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