Motivation Recipes for Brand‐Related Social Media Use: A Boolean—fsQCA Approach

Abstract

Social media Web sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram provide various means for users to interact with others, by creating, sharing, and commenting on content about anything, including brands and products. Such online brand-related activities may significantly influence a firm's operations. To effectively manage these influences, marketers should understand consumer's motivations to engage in brand-related social media use. This paper is one of the very few efforts to come to such an understanding. In this direction, a set-theoretic comparative approach is implemented-namely, fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis-as a means to capitalize on the merits of both qualitative and quantitative techniques, and provide a more nuanced coverage of how motives and their combinations affect social media use. The results of the proposed approach are compared with the results derived from the implementation of a mainstream quantitative analytical technique (i.e., multiple regression analysis), as well as the results of the qualitative study of Muntinga, Moorman, and Smit (2011)-the only study so far examining different types of brand-related social media use and their motivations. By examining motivations for the full spectrum of social media use types (i.e., consuming, contributing and creating), the paper provides marketers and brand managers with valuable insights into online consumer behavior in a social media dominated era.

Motivations for posting online reviews in the hotel industry

“…(), and Saridakis et al. (), but only when combined differently, which supports Proposition 2. Social concern is a necessary condition as it was also found by Saridakis et al.…”

“…There are many studies about the impact of online reviews (e.g., Bigné et al., ; Fagerstrøm et al., ), helpfulness of online reviews (e.g., Agnihotri et al., ), content of online reviews (e.g., Sánchez‐Franco, Navarro‐García, & Rondán‐Cataluña, ), use of online reviews (e.g., Gretzel & Yoo, ) among others. A smaller number of studies focus on the motivations to write online reviews (e.g., Saridakis et al., ) and a reduced number of studies approaches this theme in the economic impactful hospitality sector (e.g., Yoo & Gretzel, ) as it is done in this research. This study is the only one, to the best of our knowledge, which explores how different motivations (personal, social concern, social benefit, and consumer empowerment) and demographic characteristics (gender and age) combine to get consumers to write online hotel reviews by implementing a set‐theoretic comparative approach.…”

“…This is an innovative approach that is growing in management and marketing (Kan, Adegbite, El Omari, & Abdellatif, ). Recent studies use this approach in social media (e.g., Mas‐Tur, Tur‐Porcar, & Llorca, ; Saridakis, Baltas, Oghazi, & Hultman, ) as well as in tourism research (e.g., Bigné et al., 2016; Woodside, Hsu, & Marshall, ). FsQCA is based on the analysis of set–theoretic relationships, rather than linear relationships between variables as past research does.…”

Drivers and outcomes of political candidate image creation: The role of social media marketing

“…Although social media's impact on purchase behavior, brand, and customer equity has been discussed in the literature to some extent, its application in political marketing is yet to be examined at length (Asmussen, Harridge-March, Occhiocupo, & Farquhar, 2013;Chang, Yu, & Lu, 2015;Godey et al, 2016;Kaid, 2012;Kumar, Bezawada, Rishika, Janakiraman, & Kannan, 2016;Winchester et al, 2014). The role of social media and its employment by brands is becoming more eminent primarily because these platforms allow marketers to operate in a more interactive manner by allowing them to observe consumer reactions, and monitor these reactions and conversations taking place on their platforms (Saridakis et al, 2016;Schweidel & Moe, 2014). Such privileges, in return, enable brands to gain a better understanding of their consumers (Felix, Rauschnabel, & Hinsch, 2017).…”

“…The discussions revolving around the UK Election, the latest US presidential elections, and other examples including the Brexit vote and the likes of Beppe Grillo in Italy, show that the role of social media and candidate image in politics is becoming ever more prominent. Yet, although the rising significance and the increasingly potent role of social media marketing (SMM) are discussed in the general marketing literature (e.g., Saridakis, Baltas, Oghazi, & Hultman, ), it still remains relatively unexplored within the political marketing domain (Godey et al, ; Kaid, ). Indeed, social media is regarded a double‐edge sword as it has made it both simpler and more challenging for brands to form credible relationships with their consumers (Muntinga, Moorman, & Smit, ).…”