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The purpose of this study is to examine what individual motives (e.g., self-expression or rewards) and brand communication aspects (such as content) influence consumers' brand engagement behaviors, and how these behaviors are linked to their intentions in favor of a brand.

The authors conducted an online survey with a quota sample of 629 adults in the United States. Participants were recruited through a Qualtrics online panel.

Data indicate that the motivations of entertainment and remuneration are positively associated with consuming and contributing to brand content on social media. In addition, the motive of obtaining information prompts people to consume brand content (e.g., reading a brand's posts or watching videos), while the motivation for self-expression leads to contributing activities (e.g., conversing on a brand's account and uploading videos). After controlling for these motivations, brand communication strategy (such as content and tone) appears to influence consumers' brand-related activities on social media, which subsequently results in consumer intentions in favor of the brand.

Consumer engagement in social media has become the primary focus of corporate communication. This work is one of few studies that have explored how consumer motivation and brand communication come together to generate consumer engagement on social media. The overall findings shed light on how corporate communications can generate consumer engagement on social media and how companies reap benefits from it.

The purpose of this study is to identify the customer perceptions of social media brand post characteristics that drive consumer engagement with the brand post. Furthermore, this study identifies the customer-brand relationship outcomes resulting from the behavioural engagement on social media.

An online survey of 407 social media users was undertaken. Structural equation modelling was used to test all hypotheses.

The results indicated that consumers respond positively to interactive and/or novel posts. Furthermore, consumer engagement with brand posts positively influenced all customer-brand relationship facets including brand love and customer-brand identification.

This study contributes to closing the empirical gap in social media consumer engagement research by providing support for consumer perception of brand post’s characteristics as a significant factor triggering consumer engagement with the brand post. This study also provides evidence that consumer engagement with brand posts leads to customer-brand relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between customer engagement in social media (CESM), brand equity and corporate performance and investigated whether these relationships differed according to cultural factors in the United States and South Korea.

We collected customer engagement on social media data on Facebook and brand equity data from Interbrand for listed companies in the United States and Korea. A total of 405 data sets were analyzed by partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

Results revealed that CESM did not affect financial performance through a direct path but was found to have a positive indirect path via the mediation of brand equity. In addition, this relationship was found to differ between the United States and South Korea.

This study contributed to the literature on social media and international management by verifying the relationship between CESM, brand equity and financial performance, and by presenting exploratory research results to ascertain if these relationships differ according to the cultural dimension of the country.

An increasing number of brands are using algorithms to embed brand-related content to targeted consumers’ social media pages. This paper aims to analyze how do consumers’ motives of using social media in general influence their potential brand–consumer interactions and the following branding outcomes. To examine this, this study selected Facebook as the social media platform and Nike as the brand to conduct an online survey experiment to examine the effects of social media usage motives on consumers’ interactions with the brand in social media.

An online survey experiment using Nike’s Facebook page as the stimuli was conducted to analyze the interactions between consumers and a specific brand’s social media page in a natural setting. Data were collected in the USA via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk).

This study demonstrated that brand–consumer interactions, both content-consumption and content-contribution intentions, can be fostered by certain motives of using social media: information-seeking and self-identity. This study also suggested that content-consumption behavior has significant associations with consumers’ positive attitudes toward the brand’s social media pages, while content-contribution behavior does not show significant effects.

This study provides new insights about how consumers’ general motives of social media usage influence their intentions to interact with the brand in social media from two levels (i.e. content-consumption and content-contribution).

Drawing upon uses and gratifications (U&G) theory and customers' online brand-related activities framework, the present study aims to examine the influence of customers’ motivations to engage with brand-related social media content on different social media engagement behaviors (consumption, contribution and creation) and brand-related outcomes (brand trust and brand loyalty) in the quick service restaurant (QSR) context.

Based on a self-administered survey dataset of 500 social media users who are customers of QSR brands, partial least square structural equation modeling is used to verify the hypotheses.

Results showed that interactivity motivation and information motivation drive all the social media engagement behaviors (consumption, contribution and creation). The results also confirmed the mediating effect of brand trust on the relationship between two levels of social media engagement behaviors (consumption and contribution) and brand loyalty.

To entice customers to engage with QSR brands on social media, social media marketing managers should incorporate elements of interactivity, information, entertainment and incentive into QSR social media brand posts rather than relying solely on delivering social media content in a variety of ways such as photos, videos and status updates.

This study makes a novel contribution to hospitality and social media engagement literature, thus uncovering opportunities for managers to engage their customers on social media.

The integration of social media and e-commerce has resulted in a rising phenomenon among individual content providers (ICPs), who used to offer free content, to provide consumers with paid content, such as online courses, Q&As or consultations. Despite the prevalence of ICPs’ content monetization, empirical research has rarely studied its underlying mechanism. This paper examines how the characteristics of free content contributed by ICPs on social media platforms influence their paid content sales, focusing on the perspective of human brand.

The empirical setting is an online knowledge exchange platform, where users are allowed to provide free content (e.g. answers) on the social media platform and launch paid content (e.g. lectures) on the e-commerce platform. A machine learning technique is employed to construct measures for the characteristics of free content, and fixed-effects estimation is presented to confirm which factors have a significant influence on the sales of paid content.

The empirical results show that the quality, diversity and expertness of free content have a significant positive impact on the sales of the ICP-paid content, with the brand popularity of ICP playing a mediating role.

This study is the first attempt to demystify the relationship between content contribution and ICPs’ content monetization from the perspective of human brand. The findings validate the effectiveness of the “Selling by Contribution” strategy and provide valuable insights for ICPs and social media platforms.

Grounded in uses and gratification theory (UGT) and observational learning theory (OLT), this study aims to understand the impact of motivational factors on consumer-influencer engagement behaviors (CIEBs). Motivating factors, including entertainment, information seeking, reward and social interaction, are regarded as antecedents of consumers' OLT, as manifested by CIEB dimensions, including consumption, contribution and creation, and subsequently drive consumer engagement with the endorsed brands.

A self-administered questionnaire was distributed to Malaysian social media users. A total of 263 responses were collected and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to examine the impact of motivational factors on CIEBs.

The results show that the three dimensions of CIEBs can be predicted by different gratifications (information seeking, entertainment, reward and interaction). In addition, two of the CIEB dimensions, consumption and contribution, were found to have a significant positive influence on consumers' engagement with endorsed brands.

This study provides insights into how social media influencers (SMIs) could lead to CIEBs by creating entertaining and rewarding content that facilitates social interaction between consumers. SMIs and marketers that encourage consumers to browse, comment and share SMI-created posts will enhance consumer engagement with the endorsed brands, as engagement is driven by the consumption and contribution to SMI-created content.

SMI marketing is increasing, and many brands are beginning to rely more on SMIs to promote brands. Yet, there is a dearth of studies that have examined how SMIs play a role in affecting consumers' engagement with endorsed brands. This study contributes to the marketing literature by developing and empirically testing the research model. Results suggest that social interaction, reward and entertainment are key motivational factors that drive CIEBs, which, in turn, foster consumer engagement with endorsed brands.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of brand’s social media marketing efforts and individual’s online social interaction propensity on various levels of consumers’ engagement with brand-related social media content. Additionally, the subsequent effects of consumers’ engagement with brand-related social media content on overall brand equity and purchase intention have also been examined.

Preliminary studies were conducted to identify brands for the main study. Data for the main study were collected using an online survey administered at the identified brands’ Facebook fan pages. Structural equation modeling was used to test the conceptual model.

The results found the uniform effect of the social media marketing efforts and individual’s online social interaction propensity on two levels of consumers’ social media engagement, but the effect on third level has been found only from the individual’s online social interaction propensity. Subsequent effects on brand equity and purchase intention were also found varying across the engagement levels.

This study extends previous research by examining the effect of brand’s social media marketing efforts and online social interaction propensity on all the three levels of consumers’ engagement with brand-related content on social media. Also, this study enriches the existing literature by investigating the impact of these three levels of consumers’ engagement on brand’s equity and purchase intention.

Previous research has no evidence of evaluating the effectiveness of social media marketing efforts on the consumers’ engagement with brand-related social media content. Although the effect of general online social interaction propensity on effort and social engagement has been examined in previous research but the effect on consumption, contribution and creation brand-related social media content had not been measured. Additionally, the effect of consumption, contribution and creation on brand equity and purchase intention had not been evaluated.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between tourists' user‐generated content on the web and destination branding, as well as to discuss the online strategies used by destination management organizations.

The research adopts an exploratory study of social media sites and destination brands, relying on qualitative research methods, content analysis and field research.

Tourists are largely contributing to destination image formation, while avoiding the use of the formal elements of the brands. The most popular strategies used by destination management organizations exhibit some crucial weaknesses. However, a strategy based on analytics brings new opportunities for destination branding.

The study provides an innovative analysis of tourist‐created content and its impact on destination branding and presents a theoretical model of generic web‐based strategies.

Social network sites are key marketing tools that allow brands to connect and engage with consumers. However, there is still a lack of evidence of their value for football brands. This research aims to understand the motivations for fans to engage with their favourite football brands on Facebook and Instagram.

An online survey was performed, resulting in 214 valid responses. As the social media strategy followed by the football brand analysed was built around games, the authors divided fans into two groups based on the main method in which the club's games are watched: in stadium versus mediated. Multiple linear regression analysis was used to explore the relationship between motivations and fans' engagement, through content consumption and contribution, on Facebook and Instagram. Analysis was performed first with the whole sample and then by group (stadium attendance vs mediated attendance fans).

The findings show that social influence, entertainment, searching for information and rewards are the most relevant motivations for consumers to engage with brand-related content on Facebook. Entertainment, rewards and social influence are the main motivations influencing consumer interactions on Instagram. Group moderation was only confirmed in the impact of social influence on Facebook page content consumption.

The results provide valuable insights into the social media marketing activities of sports brands, which will assist brand managers to develop strategies for effectively stimulating engagement with the different groups of fans.