Consumer-Brand Relationship in the Social Media Environment

Introduction

Companies should build strong brand equity to become effective in marketing. Branding involves the identification of networks of effective, favourable, and exceptional brand connections within the memory of consumers. The process involves consumer mapping, where branding creates a lasting image in the mind of the consumer to develop brand equity (John, Loken, Kim, & Monga, 2006). Brand managers strive to create lasting images in the minds of consumers, which have strong effects on the way they experience the brand. Consumers associate with various aspects of a brand from diverse companies because of the value they offer for their money. They associate brands with different attributes and features, usage situations, product spokespeople, or logos. The connections between brands and consumers are organised in networks in reliable ways that create lasting images in the minds of individuals. The connections (the process of co-creating a brand story with the consumer) constitute the image and identify the uniqueness of the brand and the value that the consumer places on it (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). Therefore, companies should understand the most effective ways of marketing their brands to create working consumer-brand relationships. Although brand managers can use various communication channels to build such associations, social media tools are the most effective approaches in working with modern consumers.

Issue/Problem Identification

Conventionally, marketers have utilised one-to-many marketing strategies, including advertising, as the means for communicating their brand narratives to their target consumers. Although such channels remained effective in communicating the story, they did not give consumers a proper opportunity to appropriate and modify the stories to generate their versions of relevance (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins, & Wiertz, 2013). Keller (2016) suggests the importance of marketers in managing brand equity through new communication channels to achieve customer satisfaction with the brand. The new communication environment differs from the conventional ones, which lacked an interactive aspect that makes the aspect of branding attractive to consumers. Traditional channels lacked a strong voice in the brand management activities and could be easily ignored by marketers. However, the development and integration of social media in marketing have changed the way brands are managed and the role of the consumer in the process. In the new environment, brand managers have lost their central role in authoring brand stories (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). Since companies still need to strengthen their brand identity through advertising and consumer communications, they should accept the new communications environment (Kuksov, Shachar, & Wang 2013). Unlike in the conventional marketing environment, the consumer has become more empowered to create or recreate and share brand narratives. Using social media tools, they can easily and widely share the stories, a process that has empowered them in a manner that marketers can no longer ignore.

The social media environment has challenged marketers to embrace the participation of consumers and their engagement with the brand in the social media environment. Such platforms allow customers to create and communicate content with others and with the brand. Labrecque (2014) suggested that consumer’s sense of feeling and connection with the brand determined the attitude of loyalty to the brand and is determined by the communication environment such as social media. Therefore, companies should accept the role of social media because they have lost control over consumers. Consumers easily interpret their previous involvements and predict future experiences. In the social media environment, the experiences can either be positive, such as the homage to a brand, or negative, which may include negative reviews. Social media has become an effective setting for consumer-generated brand stories, which creates the opportunity for effective interactions between the consumer and the brand (Payne, Storbacka, Frow, & Knox, 2009). Results from the study revealed that social model could help in the design and management of the brand relationship when marketing innovative novel products. Therefore, companies have the challenge to embrace social media as part of their marketing campaign.

Consumer-generated brand stories communicated through social media are more impactful than stories spread through traditional channels. Marketers are increasingly challenged to accept the change and allow consumers to participate in creating the brand story (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins, & Wiertz, 2013). The proliferation of the internet has improved interactions that support brand value. Consumers are capable of creating content and sharing within user communities that appreciate a common brand.  Breivik and Thorbjørnsen (2008) explored the use of the modified relationship investment model to understand the role of the consumer in creating the brand image and support the establishment of effective consumer-brand relationships. The trend enhances human experiences as a part of innovation in brand management and value co-creation (Ramaswamy & Ozcan, 2016). The social media has provided effective platforms to make consumers the co-creators of the brand information. The platforms have also enabled businesses to achieve brand equity. Furthermore, digital platforms connect people across various channels and devices to create a brand value through consumer experiences. Therefore, marketers take advantage of the digitised channels and the interconnectedness to promote their products and services.

Besides the interconnection that has enabled companies to build brand value, the changes in technology have created transformations in the role of the consumer in marketing. Customers are no longer inactive recipients of marketing information. They have supported the ability of the consumer to interact with brand managers and the brand to create value. Furthermore, social media marketing activities have a positive relationship with the achievement of customer equity (Kim, Han, & Park, 2001). According to Ramaswamy and Ozcan (2016), consumers are actively engaged in the creation and consumption of brand information through brand engagement platforms. The reality is evident in the innovation of offerings as well as creating the human experience. Consequently, the new environment has transformed the idea of marketing beyond a simple exchange of products and services. Marketing now involves the creation of significant experiences for consumers, especially when marketing novel innovative products (Payne, Storbacka, Frow, & Knox, 2009). Consumers are engaging in activities that can play the role of immaterial labour, providing their “labour” in the digitised environment. They are operating in the hyper-connected media culture to create positive experiences when relating to brands. Ramaswamy and Ozcan (2016) suggested that they play the role through shared meanings, social relations, and commons when creating and sharing content. Therefore, a consumer-brand relationship has changed in the new social media environment.

Literature Coverage

Brands are very critical assets for any business. Firms market their brands to earn revenue, support their operations, and have returns on investment. Therefore, brand management plays an important role in ensuring that a company or business benefits from its brands. The objective of the brand manager is to build a strong brand with a rich and defined knowledge within the memory of the consumer. The process that occurs through social media is important in creating an effective consumer-brand relationship (Hudson, Huang, Roth, & Madden, 2016). They achieve the objective by writing compelling brand messages that stick in the audiences’ memory. As a result, they effectively create loyal consumers who effectively relate and engage with the brand (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins, & Wiertz, 2013). The authors further suggested that the story should have a plot, characters, a climax, and a result that build empathy in the audience. The created empathy makes it possible for listeners or viewers to remember the brand story. Brand managers should create a compelling story through narrative transportation, which means moving the audience into a new world of the brand narrative. They strive to create a long term connection between the consumer and the brand.

Companies should effectively measure their networks of brand relationships to reveal a brand map that is beneficial for marketers to understand how their brands are performing in the market. The map shows significant brand associations and expresses the connection between the association and the brand. They reveal the direction for which the company is moving in terms of its association with its real and potential customers. The map indicates various connections that link directly from the company to the customers using the brand. The connections have other important factors such as service and value that a firm offers to its customers such as in health care settings (John, Loken, Kim, & Monga, 2006). Therefore, marketers should ensure that their customers have a positive experience when relating to their brands. According to Brakus, Schmitt, and Zarantonello (2009), companies should be able to measure customer experience and consumer behavior to improve their marketing activities and ensure they create strong connections between the brand and its real and potential consumers. The process creates consumer satisfaction and loyalty.

Researchers use various theories to explain the relationship between the consumer and the brand marketed by a particular company. For instance, Batra, Ahuvia, and Bagozzi (2012) used a grounded theory approach in evaluating the character and effect of brand love among customers in the social media environment. Using the theory, it is possible to comprehend the consumers’ brand feelings and thoughts, as well as perceptions. The literature on brand love focuses on the comprehension of the way consumers normally experience brand stories and create lasting meanings in the process. Beukeboom, Kerkhof, and de Vries (2015) showed that when customers follow a brand’s Facebook updates, it influences brand evaluations positively and their connection with the media story. Consumers have their ways of creating brand love that generates loyalty. Various concepts have emerged in the process of understanding brand love such as passion-driven behaviours, self-brand integration, long-term relationship, positive emotional connection, attitude certainty and confidence (strength), positive overall attitude valence, and anticipated separation distress (Batra, Ahuvia, & Bagozzi, 2012). Besides, the concept of brand love is associated with quality beliefs about the brand. The authors discuss the reality of first-order and higher-order models that determine the level of brand loyalty.

Marketers focus on creating a positive brand experience to build brand love and also measure the impact of their activities on the customer. According to Brakus, Schmitt, and Zarantonello (2009), researchers have created important constructs and measurements that are effective in evaluating customer experience in brand management and how they derive an attachment with the brand. Measuring the effect of their activities on the consumer is critical to establish the effectiveness of their marketing activities on creating a positive brand image. Some of the measures include brand community, brand personality, brand attachment, brand trust, and brand love. Consumers achieve a positive experience if they are allowed to participate in creating the brand story (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins, & Wiertz, 2013). However, researchers have explored the context in which a particular product and service experience arises. Brand experience is an important subject for brand managers because they seek to create positive perceptions of the product or service among customers. Marketing practitioners should understand how the consumer experiences brands to develop successful marketing strategies for services and goods (Breivik & Thorbjørnsen, 2008). The knowledge enables firms to experience considerable success in creating positive consumer–brand relationships.

Brand managers have in the past successfully created effective brand stories that appeal to their customers and retain their loyalty. The stories should be entrenched in the minds of the customers such that they can use the information in the long-term. Therefore, understanding the role of the audience in brand management is critical (Singh & Sonnenburg 2012). For example, Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign and Ben & Jerry’s website are firm-generated brand stories that have influenced consumers in the long term. Such campaigns are aimed at creating and strengthening consumers’ relationship with the brand. According to Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins, and Wiertz (2013), they achieve the objective by creating a theme to support conversation between the consumer and the business or brand to create an effective story. Besides, they provide a chance for conversation among target consumers to strengthen the brand. The interactions make it possible for consumers to include their personal experiences and thoughts relating to the brand into the narrative. The important role of the consumer is critical to keep the brand performance alive (Singh & Sonnenburg 2012). Hence, to achieve the objective, the brand managers should select an effective channel to deliver the brand information through an improvement process.

Marketing has increasingly moved away from the conventional communication environment to digital media, including social media. Furthermore, the activity has moved beyond the mere exchange to a process that creates value for the business and consumers. At the same time, the value creation process has become a joint activity or co-creational experiences (Ramaswamy & Ozcan, 2016). As a result, the consumer-brand interactions involve a process through which brand managers are working with consumers to create brand negatives, and hence, the value. Although the literature on the value co-creation is still limited, it is evident that consumers are playing an important role in the marketing process because of the content creation ability of the social media such as Facebook (Beukeboom, Kerkhof, & de Vries, 2015). Within the social media environment, brand building involves the creation of human experiences that actively engages the target audience. It entails brand value co-creation, where the company takes into account the important role of the consumer in brand management.

Social media has become a powerful tool for marketers to reach and appeal to real and potential customers when promoting their brands. Facebook is one of the commonly used social media tools in the world today. Park, Kee, and Valenzuela (2009) did a survey, focusing on Facebook use and the immersion role it plays among the users. The survey of 1,715 college students revealed impressive use of social media through the users’ gratifications. The trend has been increasing with time, and the current number of active users has almost doubled since then. With such a huge following, social media offers a powerful tool for businesses to market their brands online. Social media platforms have revolutionised online marketing in the last two decades. They have the potential to create brand communities around social media platforms (Laroche, Habibi, & Richard, 2013). Brand managers should understand how to use social media platforms effectively to gain a considerable following.

Social media includes online strategies for participating in various activities. Social media channels facilitate participation between different people through regular updates and incentives (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). As a result, it has become a significant way for brand marketers to communicate with various customer segments. Businesspersons are increasing their online marketing budget. In 2014, it was approximated that social media advertising budget went up to $5 billion in 2014 from $4.1 billion in the previous year (eMarketer, 2013). Within a short duration, brand managers have adopted the use of social media platforms and utilized them for various purposes, including branding, customer relations, advertisement, and promotion. Many brand managers have acknowledged the importance of social media in business (eMarketer, 2013). In 2013, the Social Media Industry Report indicated that 86% of marketers considered the platform a major part of marketing activities. Therefore, they use a considerable part of their marketing budget for online initiatives.

Literature Discussion

The reviewed literature shows that marketers can create effective consumer-brand relationships in the social media environment. According to Labrecque (2014), brands have enhanced their position in social media, increasing consumers’ expectations by improving their sense of feeling and connection with the brand. Therefore, businesses can easily develop and capitalise on technology to support consumer engagement. Labrecque (2014) challenges marketers to understand how to use social media effectively to maintain their one-to-one characteristics and close association qualities that the social media platforms provide to market their brands. A vast majority of consumers and customer segments are found in social media because of the proliferation of technology. Therefore, marketers can capitalise on the trend to meet consumer expectations through increased interactions and allowing them to play the content co-creation role (Gensler, Völckner, Liu-Thompkins, & Wiertz, 2013). Labrecque (2014) proposed the need for marketers to increase their online interactions with their customers to build the necessary consumer-brand relationships. Therefore, they should research and develop effective ways of interacting with their online clients.

Researchers have used theories to propose effective ways of creating positive consumer-brand relations in the social media environment. Labrecque (2014) suggested the use of consumer communications literature to support positive interactions between brands and consumers. The author used the parasocial interaction (PSI) theory as the theoretical basis for creating functional social media strategies to facilitate the use of the online tools for brand marketing. Labrecque (2014) conducted a study that provided evidence of the consumer communications environment in developing positive relationship results when targeting online consumers. According to Park, Kee, and Valenzuela (2009), the feeling of connection between the consumer and the online information surpasses the interaction itself. It is the main factor behind the creation of the sense of loyalty intentions and the willingness to engage with communal activities such as civic participation.  In marketing, such feelings develop when marketers understand and create effective marketing strategies to appeal to online consumers.

Brand managers can also use branded social campaigns to support interactions between the brand and the consumer. Ashley and Tuten (2015) reveal that such initiatives provide extra touchpoints and support continued interactions between the consumer and the brand through active participation in creating the brand story. Although conventional media has provided the mechanism for consumers to relate with the brand, branded social campaigns are more effective in the social media environment. Besides improving consumer-brand relationships, social media platforms help brand managers to unveil shared themes in the feedback given by customers, and influence them to continue engaging with the online content. The mediating role enables the creation of brand trust and loyalty (Laroche, Habibi, & Richard, 2013). Notably, touchpoints include customers’ connections with the brand through the way they feel and experience the brand (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). Consequently, the aspect encourages consumers to remember the brand and hence, engage with it in the long-term, which forms brand loyalty.

Branded social campaigns are among the most effective ways for marketers to promote their brands using social media. They have various alternatives to achieve their marketing goals, such as through consumer brand engagement in the social media environment (Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014). One of the options is to place paid display advertising. On the other hand, they can also achieve the objective by engaging with social media platforms as a brand persona. Marketers can develop branded participation opportunities for consumers to engage with social media networks. They can also publish branded content (referred to as social publishing or content marketing) in social media platforms (Brakus, Schmitt, & Zarantonello, 2009). Besides direct branded social campaigns, companies can use social media marketing as part of their marketing communication campaigns to reach real and potential consumers. They can also use the channels for continuing corporate communications or several micro-campaigns targeted to online consumers (Ashley & Tuten, 2015). Whichever approach marketers decide to use, they allow social media to support regular interactions to create long-term relationships between the consumer and the brand.

The development of social media tools such as Facebook has offered new opportunities for brand managers to create brands and connect them to their target customers. Beukeboom, Kerkhof, and de Vries (2015) recommended that marketers should understand the effective ways of using Facebook to connect their brands to customers. From the review of literature, it becomes evident that companies can effectively create brand value in the social media environment. As a result, many firms are integrating social media channels into their communication strategies to optimise the number of people who can receive the brand message. Many marketers consider the benefits of using social media for marketing. According to Beukeboom, Kerkhof, and de Vries (2015), research has not effectively explored the cost-effectiveness of using social media in brand management. Nonetheless, effectively implemented social media branding strategies can help companies to reach the audience and create a lasting image of the brand.

Research into the utilisation of social media channels in marketing and brand management reveals that the environment has a major impact on creating consumer-brand relationships. Various studies have indicated the positive relationship between the use of social media and other variables such as brand equity and loyalty (Kim & Ko, 2012; Beukeboom, Kerkhof, & de Vries, 2015). Nonetheless, most of the findings are founded on correlational data and depend on the perceptions of participants who have made a conscious decision to follow the brand. As a result, the studies hinder effective conclusions because positive evaluations of the brand may be the cause instead of the effect of the decision to follow the brand. Therefore, research shows the need to conduct more investigations to determine the actual impact of social media on the decision to follow and relate to a particular brand. After all, social networking sites are the main channel to support brand management in the modern business world, and it is important to determine the actual effect of the decision to use the tools.

Conclusion

As it is evident from the discussion above, consumer needs have increased as brands continue to affirm their position in the social media platforms. Hence, the whole process has enhanced the technology development to create value in the process of engagement between the consumers and brands. For more than a decade, researchers have revealed a paradigm shift in marketing. Although marketers are still using conventional communication channels to market their brands, they have increasingly adopted social media to reach their customers. According to the review of the research, the change is informed by the increased use of social media platforms such as Facebook among other platforms. Notably, the use of such applications increases the chances of the marketer to reach as many real and potential customers as possible because of the increases in the number of their users across the world. Furthermore, customers can support brand value creation through content generation capability. Notably, some researchers claim that consumers have become co-creators of brand stories. Therefore, much of the brand literature focuses on the customer perspective in brand management.

In the last few decades, researchers have concentrated on the dynamics of the consumer-brand relationship in the social media environment. Hence, they have defined the “consumer brand engagement” (CBE) concept to explain the growing role of social media in creating more informed consumers in brand management. The digitised communication networks have created interactive brand relationships that support consumer experience when creating and communicating brand stories. Nonetheless, despite the increase in research on marketing using the social media and the impact on the way customers interact with a brand, there is still minimal literature on the actual impact of the social media on lasting consumer-brand relationships. Since companies are investing in social media, they should understand the actual returns on their investment. Therefore, more research is necessary to establish the actual effect of social media on consumer-brand relationships.

Evidence Matrix

References

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