۱- Introduction

۲- Literature review

۳- Methodology

۴- Findings

۵- Discussion

۶- Theoretical implications

۷- Managerial implications

۸- Limitations and future research

References

Abstract

Customers engaging with brands on social media is critical to social media managers; however, there is still a lack of in-depth studies on the drivers of consumers’ engagement with luxury brands. Drawing on 25 semi-structured interviews with customers following luxury brands in social media, this study explores what motivates customers to engage with luxury brands on social media. This research develops a theoretical framework for the motivations of customers’ cognitive, emotional and behavioral engagement with luxury brands. The study identifies 13 motivations grouped into six macro-dimensions: perceived content relevancy (brand news, post quality, and celebrity endorsement), brand-customer relationship (brand love, and brand ethereality), hedonic (entertainment), aesthetic (design appeal), socio-psychological (actual self-congruency, status signaling, and enhance and maintain face), brand equity (perceived brand quality), and technology factors (ease of use and convenience). This study helps marketing managers of luxury brands to understand how they can improve engagement with their customers.

Introduction

Through Social Media (SM), consumers are able to connect and interact with their favorite brands and share messages with friends, peers, and acquaintances. SM is thus transforming consumers from passive recipients of marketing communications to influencers and active creators by shifting some marketing power over brands to consumers (Berthon, Pitt, Plangger, & Shapiro, 2012). The proliferation and widespread use of SM platforms creates a whole new opportunity for firms, the content they generate on SM enhances customers’ spending, cross-buying, profitability and relationships (Kumar, Bezawada, Rishika, Janakiraman, & Kannan, 2016). After initial fears that SM could negatively affect their prestigious nature, luxury brands are increasingly using and investing in SM (Phan, Thomas, & Heine, 2011). Luxury brands use SM platforms to enhance brand attitude and loyalty (Kim & Lee, 2019). Estée Lauder attributed recent sales growth to a “creative approach to digital engagement, particularly across social media” (Deloitte, 2017). Luxury brands like Burberry, Tiffany, and Louis Vuitton have turned to SM and regularly share pictures and videos of fashion shows or photo shoots. According to McKinsey & Company (2018), the total global luxury market is worth €۲۵۴ billion, 80% of which is influenced by digital technology, with online’s share of luxury sales expected to reach 20% by 2025. A report reveals that consumer engagement in digital environments will drive growth of luxury brands and retailers (BCG & Altagamma, 2019). Nowadays, luxury brands are sought, experienced, and purchased in very different ways than they were in the past; consumers, especially Millennials, expect efficient e-commerce websites, engaging and exciting interactions on SM, and multiple channels through which to interact with brands (Abtan, Barton, Bonelli, Gurzki, Mei-Pochtler, Pianon, & Tsusaka, 2016). Scholars have identified several benefits that SM can provide to marketers including: stimulating purchase intention, electronic wordof-mouth and loyalty (Lipsman, Mudd, Rich, & Bruich, 2012), positively affecting customer-product, customer-brand, customer-company and customer-other customers relationships (Laroche, Habibi, & Richard, 2013), and leading to improved brand performance, retailer performance, and consumer–retailer loyalty (Rapp, Beitelspacher, Grewal, & Hughes, 2013). SM can also enable firms to better understand their customers, improving relationships and loyalty (Barreda, Bilgihan, Nusair, & Okumus, 2015), as well as acting as a means for responding to customers’ complaints (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2014). Moreover, using SM can enhance the credibility of marketing at a time when consumers are increasingly skeptical about traditional advertising; for instance the message of an engaged consumer is believed to be twenty-two times more persuasive than a marketer’s message (Goh, Heng, & Lin, 2013).