The Impact of Social Media Activities on Brand Equity

Ra’ed Masa’deh

Shafig AL-Haddad

Dana Al Abed

Hadeel Khalil

Lina AlMomani

Taghreed Khirfan

Department of E-Marketing and Social Media, Princess Sumaya University for Technology, Amman 11941, Jordan

Submission received: 11 September 2021 / Revised: 9 November 2021 / Accepted: 9 November 2021 / Published: 18 November 2021

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the impact of Social Media Activities on brand equity (brand awareness and brand image). A cross-sectional quantitative study has been conducted using a validated questionnaire distributed to a convenience sample of 362 participants who used one or more forms of an Airline’s social media. Multiple Regression analysis was performed using SPSS version 20 to test the hypotheses. Results revealed a significant impact of Social Media Activities as a whole on brand equity. It was found that entertainment, customization, interaction and EWOM significantly affected the brand image, while customization, trendiness, interaction and EWOM significantly affected brand awareness. This study is one of few to examine the impact of social media activities on brand equity towards Airlines in Middle Eastern countries. The study provided several theoretical and practical implications that can benefit airline managers in their marketing efforts using various social media activities.

1. Introduction

The continuous advance and availability of internet services have enabled people to access and interact increasingly with Social Media (SM) [1,2,3] In the marketing field, SM has been an important means for introducing various products and services to consumers, affecting Brand Image (BI) and Brand Awareness (BA) [4]. Moreover, retailers and manufacturers look to SM as a tool for successful diffusion into the market, allowing consumers to become aware of a new product at a high rate [5,6]. stated that marketing through SM involves several activities, entertainment, customization, interaction, electronic word of mouth (EWOM) and trendiness. These activities are taking over many roles in businesses all over the world including marketing [4,7,8,9]. Entertainment is the fun and pleasure attained from using social media, it is the happy time that customers acquire by using social media sites. Moreover, it is the main driver of the attractiveness of using social media [10,11]. Customization is the alignment of social media with customers’ preferences and attitudes in order to enhance their relationship with the brand. This technique is used to deliver branding uniqueness and to increase customer loyalty [12,13]. Further, interaction is a key component of social media, as it allows customers to exchange information and opinions with others. This interaction results in active engagement and keeps customers motivated to seek information [14,15]. With regard to EWOM, it comprises the informal communications between consumers that can significantly influence consumer brand choice, and can be considered as a powerful marketing tool [6,16]. Lastly, trendiness represents the degree to which the information provided via social media is kept up to date and new [11].

This research studied the impact of social media activities SMA on BI and BA, which could be expressed as brand equity [17]. A Jordanian Airline that uses various social media platforms was considered as a case study for this research. Many researchers propose that SM be considered a crucial mean for online marketing, considering worldwide internet popularity; as a result, many companies are taking this advantage by creating their own SM platforms [18]. It should be a concern for entrepreneurs and business holders to explore the degree of influence of SM on customers, in order to enhance their marketing strategies. This study will contribute to developing the airline marketing vision and strategies. Furthermore, it seeks to answer the following question:

Studies on the role of SMA on the image and awareness about the brand are still insufficient [4,11]. To the researchers’ knowledge, there are no studies exploring this issue in Jordan yet. This study had provided important knowledge of the impact of SMA on brand equity. Additionally, will be a base for future, similar studies to improve these activities and emphasize particular aspects that have the greatest impact in the marketing field. This research seeks to progress existing literature by gaining knowledge on the impact of social media activities on brand equity, fulfilling the gap of recognizing the role of SMA’s in marketing.

The current study is realized through the expansion of previous theoretical SMA’s and brand equity models for the airline industry. The experimental verification of the research conceptual model has made an influential theoretical contribution to the existing literature. As per researchers’ knowledge, it extended the first experimental analysis of the effect of SMA’s including Facebook and Twitter on brand equity towards Airlines in Jordan. Moreover, it added to the existing literature by examining the impact of five SMA’s together (entertainment, customization, interactions, EWOM, and trendiness) on brand equity. Additionally, the current study enables the airline industry to increase the success in interacting with their customers in a way that enhances brand equity and allows the business to continually grow.

In addition, the findings of this research are substantial and have provided several practical suggestions.

The current study is organized into five sections; the following section contains the literature review and the hypotheses development. Then, the methodology and results follow. This is followed by the discussion section, the implications and research limitations and future research avenues.

2. Literature Review

2.1. Social Media

Not long ago, SM became one of the most powerful ways that many businesses contact and entrust their costumers to establish characteristic brand identity [3,19,20]. In [21] said that “interaction with customers using social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in marketing strategies will impact BI positively affect”. [17] conducted a study regarding brand equity, which consists of BA and BI, where they concluded that it is one of the outcomes of businesses’ SMA’s. A previous study by [22] investigated the impact of SMA on BA. The study revealed that one of the most important tools to establish and increase brand equity is SM. [11] examined whether SMA plays an important part in brand equity in the airline industry, and the outcome revealed a positive effect of SMA’s on brand equity.

In light of this, and considering the fast evolution of SM, most airlines have now recognized that keeping the SMA away from the marketing plan would return in negative results related to competitive edge. Furthermore, airlines’ competition is intense and growing continuously, where we can observe that quality services with low cost are increasing since most airlines are pursuing creative and unique methods to enhance the experience of customers during the travel period [23].

A previous study claimed that a well-designed SM strategy could create advantageous effects with the lowest financial outlays. On the other hand, keeping the SM out will negatively affect the image and outcome [24]. Moreover, the authors in a prior study in Jordan recommended airlines to focus on updating the content of their SM links regularly, by displaying interesting offers that will attract more customers and keep their content up-to-date [25].

An aim of the current research is to examine the relationship between SMA’s used by Royal Jordanian, including; entertainment, customization, interaction, EWOM, and trendiness on brand equity among Jordanians. Previous studies related to these activities were reviewed. Nevertheless, most of the studies were conducted in western countries and the Far East, with few studies existing in Jordan and the Middle East.

2.2. Sma’s and Brand Equity

Brand equity consists of BA and BI, where both are critical components of brand knowledge. Aaker [26] defined BA as potential consumers’ capability of recognizing or remembering a certain brand, which assists consumers to relate products with brands. This can be created by consumers’ recurrent and memorable exposure to the brand. It is defined in literature by Langaro et al. [27] as a prerequisite for brands to be taken into account in consumers’ decision-making process. On the other hand, BI means the group of memories concerned with the brand in consumers’ minds; it shows how the brand recognized in the consumers’ memory [28]. Aaker [28] claimed that brand equity is achieved when customers know the brand, have a distinctive perception of the brand, and when the brand is well-known.

Keller [29] also claimed that whenever the customer is aware of the brand, brand equity takes place, which provides consumers with positive, influential and distinctive retention of the BI. Providing the increasing importance of SMA’s in marketing, businesses have started using SM to deliver key messages associated with the brand to create a solid and favorable BI and BA in the mind of consumers.

2.2.1. Entertainment

Entertainment is an essential part that motivates participants’ attitude and the continuousness of pursuit that leads to favorable perceptions regarding the brand [30]. Moreover, marketers utilize SM to display entertaining and funny contents to deliver interesting information to consumers, such as pictures and videos shared on Facebook and Instagram to please the consumers to fulfil their need for delight which attracts their attention [31,32,33]. For instance, in 2019 RJ used humor in promoting new offers through Facebook. This humor content went viral through Facebook pages where individuals’ opinions varied between supporter and opposer. Nevertheless, people in Jordan were aware of the new offers in RJ due to the humor used.

Manthiou et al. [32] claimed that pleasing content will provoke the attention of customers even if the reason behind using the SM differs for individuals. This has been explored in a prior study by [34], where it was revealed that entertainment is a motivating aspect in encouraging the involvement of participants with SM. Therefore, a pleasant feeling can be created for customers by posting interesting and entertaining activities on SM platforms, such as, uploading games and competitions which can stimulate the customers’ participation [35,36,37]. This being said, many previous empirical studies illustrated that when individuals like the enjoyable content existing on SM platforms, it will create a positive experience in their mind, which probably will lead them to recognize and recall the brand [3,29,35].

2.2.2. Customization

Customization in SM was defined in previous studies as the extent to which services given are tailored to fulfil the consumers’ predilections [15,38]. It differs from conventional advertisement media by being grounded on interaction and communication with consumers, which makes it possible to obtain customers’ satisfaction by optimizing the information given to them individually [38]. In addition to that, customization enables the business to deliver the exclusivity of their brands and increase consumers’ preferences for it [12]. Additionally, it allows businesses to deal individually with customers’ problems and direct the advertising and services as well as personalized message for value creation to a certain set of individuals [39,40,41]. For instance, replying instantly to consumers’ personal questions builds customer contentment [39].

2.2.3. Interaction

Interaction in SMA can be accomplished when consumers give their thoughts on SM platforms, and come across, exchange and argue with people with similar thinking about certain products or brands [42]. Hence, interaction means the amount of space provided by social media platforms to discuss and exchange ideas, bidirectional interactions and data sharing [43,44]. Many businesses encourage their customers to share their purchase experience in simple ways on the selected SM platform, which can be called users’ online interactions [19]. Essentially, SM nowadays is defeating time and space constrictions by encouraging business to interact with potential consumers and increase their closeness [45]. In support of this view, prior empirical studies revealed that to enhance consumers’ behavior towards products and brands, businesses need to create SM interactions with users by making it easier to fulfil their demands, needs, opinions and suggestions in reality [46,47,48]. Furthermore, interactive activities and communications existing on SM platforms will likely reach more consumers than old-fashioned media, such as television and radio. In light of this, businesses are advised to increase users’ interaction and participation on certain subjects and discussions on SM platforms, to create and develop a customer’s connection toward the brand [40,49].

2.2.4. EWOM

A series of recent studies have indicated that Electronic Word of Mouth (EWOM) can hugely impact the interest of consumers in products or brands, which has a significant effect on BE. Moreover, many independent scenarios illustrate that EWOM tends to affect the whole decision-making process of a consumer [50,51,52]. For example, Cortizo-Burgess [53] suggested that a traveler who used an airline could praise or complain about his experience as a passenger on this airline on Twitter, which could influence others’ decisions about booking through this airline. Several authors have recognized that EWOM is considered a powerful marketing tool, since clients, before buying products or services, look for any written online reviews by previous customers to evaluate the products [3,54,55]. Dissimilar to physical word of mouth, which fades after the individual has verbally spoken, EWOM stays visible, at minimum, until a post is removed. However, the post might still be found in Internet caches [56]. In addition to that, one previous study which was conducted on airline, automotive and communication industries revealed that EWOM has a substantial impact on consumers’ BE [41].

However, a previous study investigated the fact that the current generation’s probability of buying certain products is highly affected by the feedback from people who are followed on SM. The products purchase was impacted by SMA on the following platforms: Twitter (50%), Pinterest (47%), and Facebook (45%) [50]. This being said, it has claimed that SM sites are not similarly reliable sources of product information to gather consumer attention and increase sales [57]. Moreover, [57] suggested that even though EWOM has a crucial role in marketing, as SM develops and wider social suggestions emerge, we must study the way consumers may use SM rather than looking into the communicative aspects of SM. Despite that, the reviewed literature shows that EWOM has a substantial effect on airline SM and BE. Hence, consumers become increasingly dependent on SM to obtain information on products [58,59].

2.2.5. Trendiness

Trendiness known for giving the latest information related to a service or a product [15]. As information is continuously provided in actual time on SM, it has become the latest and updated origin of information for consumers. Trendy information includes the latest information on a brand or product, feedback and fresh ideas, which builds consumers’ brand trust and accordingly enforces the consumer’s positive awareness toward the brand or the product [15,32]. Many authors suggested that consumers apt to trust product-related information learned through SM more than traditional channels, as it is perceived to be more useful and up-to-date. Therefore, we can observe that whenever SM platforms provide trendy and hot topics, more trust is created between the brand and customers, therefore minimizing search efforts consumed by users [34,60,61,62].