Gratifications of using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat to follow brands: The moderating effect of social comparison, trust, tie strength, and network homophily on brand identification, brand engagement, brand commitment, and membership intention
Introduction
Social networking sites (SNSs) enable users to create personal profiles, articulate their identities, connect with other users and brands, and view, share, upload and comment on photos, messages, videos and other content posted on their newsfeeds (Boyd and Ellison, 2007, Phua and Jin, 2011). SNSs are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in the everyday lives of people worldwide. Among the most popular SNSs as of March 2016 are Facebook (1.56 billion active users), Instagram (400 million active users), Twitter (320 million active users), and Snapchat (200 million active users) (Statista, 2015). Additionally, a 2015 industry report by Social Media Examiner found that over 96% of businesses use SNSs to market their brands and products, due to their ability to increase brand exposure, attract website traffic, develop loyal fans, and gain marketplace intelligence (Stelzner, 2015). At the same time, consumers are increasingly using SNSs to find out about brands and products (Laroche et al., 2012, Lipsman et al., 2012). Consumers also integrate two or more SNSs as part of their daily activities (Quan-Haase and Young, 2010) and access these SNSs on their mobile devices (Lenhart et al., 2015), allowing marketers more touch-points to reach their consumers. Social media activities for a brand can foster the consumer base of the brand (Xie and Lee, 2015) and engagement in social media brand communities increases consumers’ purchase expenditures (Goh et al., 2013). Millions of companies have set up Facebook pages for brand communication purposes and the popularity of social media necessitates theoretical understanding of how social media exposures influence brand-related outcomes (Xie and Lee, 2015).
In light of the exponential growth of SNSs and the integral role social media platforms play in brand communication (Xie and Lee, 2015, Goh et al., 2013), this study aims to provide theoretical explanations for “why” people use SNSs and further elucidate the key motivations for using different SNS platforms in the context of brand communities. To this end, the current research draws from uses and gratification theory (UGT) given the relevance of the theory to the assumption of media users as “active communicators” instead of passive recipients of media forms and contents (Rubin, 2002).
Approaching the intersection between consumers’ use of multiple SNSs to find out about brands and the utility of different SNSs for social media marketing, this study applies UGT (Katz et al., 1974) to examine consumers’ use of several top SNS platforms to follow brands, gratifications gained from using them, and their influence on brand community-related outcomes. Drawing from UGT and building upon previous empirical findings (Quan-Haase and Young, 2010), the present study posited that frequent users of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat would derive different gratifications from their use (passing time, showing affection, following fashion, sharing problems, demonstrating sociability, and improving social knowledge) (Quan-Haase and Young, 2010), and also have different impacts on brand community-related outcomes (identification, engagement, commitment, and membership intention). The relationship between SNS use and brand community-related outcomes would also be moderated by several intervening variables (e.g., attention to social comparison, SNS trust, tie strength, and network homophily). Overall, the study offers insights into the utility of different SNS platforms for marketing and their influences on consumers’ perceptions of brands they follow.
Section snippets
Social networking sites (SNSs) and brands
A major advantage of SNSs over more traditional media (e.g., radio, television) is their capacity for greater user interactivity. When SNS users “like” or “follow” a brand, they will receive updates and posts by the brand on their newsfeed. The users can then “like”, share, or comment on the post, which would further propagate it on their friends’ newsfeeds, whose own interactions with the post would, in turn, be rebroadcast to their networks. Hence, brand content is transmitted in SNSs at a
Participants
College students (N = 305) enrolled at a major university in the United States participated in the study for extra credit. A total of 252 (82.6%) were female, while 53 (17.4%) were male. For ethnicity, 229 (75.1%) were White, 28 (9.2%) were African-American, 28 (9.2%) were Asian, 10 (3.3%) were Latino/Hispanic, 5 (1.6%) were Mixed, and 5 (1.6%) were Other. For year in school, 23 (7.5%) were freshmen, 92 (30.2%) were sophomores, 116 (38.0%) were juniors, 71 (23.3%) were seniors, and 3 (1.0%) were
SNS Use
For SNS most frequently used to follow brands, 116 (38.0%) answered Instagram, 93 (30.5%) answered Facebook, 60 (19.7%) answered Twitter, 28 (9.2%) answered Snapchat, 6 (2.0%) answered Tumblr, 1 (0.4%) answered Pinterest, and 1 (0.4%) answered Google+. For main device to log in to the SNS, 241 (79.0%) used smartphones, 55 (18.0%) used laptops, 5 (1.6%) used desktops, and 4 (1.3%) used tablets. These findings were consistent with a Pew Research Center report on teenagers, SNS and technology use (
Key empirical findings, managerial implications, and theoretical contributions
The results indicate that individuals who most frequently used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat to follow brands differ significantly on six gratifications of SNS use: passing time (H1a), showing affection (H1b), following fashion (H1c), sharing problems (H1d), demonstrating sociability (H1e), and improving social knowledge (H1f). Specifically, individuals who used Snapchat most frequently for following brands scored highest on passing time, sharing problems, and improving social
References (60)
- et al.
Social versus psychological brand community: the role of psychological sense of brand community
J. Bus. Res.
(2008) - et al.
Consumer brand engagement in social media: conceptualization, scale development and validation
J. Interact. Marketing
(2014) - et al.
Brand followers’ retweeting behavior on Twitter: how brand relationships influence brand electronic word-of-mouth
Comput. Hum. Behav.
(2014) - et al.
The effects of social media based brand communities on brand community markers, value creation practices, brand trust and brand loyalty
Comput. Hum. Behav.
(2012) - et al.
Images of success and the preference for luxury brands
J. Consum. Psychol.
(2006) - et al.
Customer complaining: the role of tie strength and information control
J. Retail.
(2008) - et al.
Facebook and texting made me do it: media-induced task-switching while studying
Comput. Hum. Behav.
(2013) Does size matter? An examination of small and large web-based brand communities
J. Interact. Marketing
(2010)- et al.
The social influence of brand community: evidence from European car clubs
J. Marketing
(2005) - et al.
Attention to social comparison information: An individual difference factor affecting consumer conformity
J. Consum. Res.
(1990)
Social network sites: definition, history, and scholarship
J. Comput. Mediated Commun.
Social ties and word-of-mouth referral behavior
J. Consum. Res.
Social comparison, imitation of celebrity models and materialism among Chinese youth
Int. J. Advertising
Drivers of new product recommending and referral behavior on social network sites
Int. J. Advertising
Interactive digital advertising vs. virtual brand community: exploratory study of user motivation and social media marketing responses in Taiwan
J. Interact. Advertising
Memo to marketers: quantitative evidence for change: how user-generated content really affects brands
J. Advertising Res.
Determinants of consumer engagement in electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in social networking sites
Int. J. Advertising
Following the fashionable friend: the power of social media-weighing publicity effectiveness of blogs versus online magazines
J. Advertising Res.
Competition between the internet and traditional news media: The gratification-opportunities niche dimension
J. Media Econo.
The benefits of Facebook “friends:” social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites
J. Comput. Mediated Commun.
The strength of weak ties
Am. J. Sociol.
Motivations of Facebook, You Tube and similar web sites users
Bilig
Social media brand community and consumer behavior: quantifying the relative impact of user- and marketer-generated content
Inf. Syst. Res.
Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression-Based Approach
Interpersonal trust and platform credibility in a Chinese multibrand online community
J. Advertising
The potential of social media for luxury brand management: a structural equation modeling approach
Marketing Intell. Plann.
Following celebrities’ tweets about brands: the impact of twitter-based electronic word-of-mouth on consumers’ source credibility perception, buying intention, and social identification with celebrities
J. Advertising
Utilization of mass communication by the individual
Constitutive marketing: towards understanding brand community formation
Int. J. Advertising
Internet uses and gratifications: a structural equation model of interactive advertising
J. advertising
Cited by (331)
Influence mechanism of consumers’ characteristics on impulsive purchase in E-commerce livestream marketing
2023, Computers in Human BehaviorExploring how consumer cooperatives might strategically incorporate social media to distribute wine
2024, Journal of Consumer Behaviour