Social media fostering happiness management: three luxury brands case study on Instagram

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to increase the understanding of luxury brands’ branded content strategies concerning follower's engagement generated or not by happiness and well-being feelings spread in their branded content. Design/methodology/approach This study sample was composed of three of the most relevant luxury brands nowadays: Manolo Blahnik, Loewe, y Balenciaga. To address this research, an exploratory-correlational quantitative methodology was chosen; hypotheses were contrasted using ANOVA analysis with the SPSS software. Although the study can be considered quantitative, the first step of qualitative analysis was applied for content analysis with NVivo QSR software, categorizing all posts (N = 192) into three categories. Findings The dissemination of branded content and corporate social responsibility, despite being different in each case, show in general an interaction and affective commitment with their stakeholders. In the specific case of Manolo Blahnik and Loewe, they have prioritized their content, in the context of the pandemic, in posts related to social welfare, happiness, mental and physical health care. There are significant differences in the interaction with their audience, which respond very favorably to both “Happiness” and “Health and safety” content. Originality/value This study reveals how corporate social responsibility can be achieved using efficient communications in social networks. In this way, the perception of the image of the sector and the reputation can be improved – both sectoral and organizational – which unquestionably translates into economic gains for the brands.

Eye Tracking and an A/B Split Test for Social Media Marketing Optimisation: The Connection between the User Profile and Ad Creative Components

“…Furthermore, given the benefits of social marketing and happiness management for increasing the competitiveness of a firm [57][58][59], customizing promotional content is more effective if it gives consumers feelings like happiness and well-being [60]. In this way, users are more attracted to the ads that make them feel good, making the social media marketing campaign more effective.…”

“…Social marketing is considered a powerful tool of which the main purpose is to increase 'social good' by changing people's behaviour in order to increase social well-being and happiness [59]. A study showed that followers' engagement increases on social media if the brand content is linked to concepts such as happiness and health and safety [60]. "Social media have been developed rapidly and it is recognized as a key strategic element of organizations competitiveness and survival" [61], and its value is recognized in various fields [62][63][64], being related to happiness and consumption habits [65].…”

“…These pages represent the key platform for users to interact with companies and provide users with the content that might interest them. Recent studies have referred to brand pages and consumer behaviour [60,69,70], and it has been shown that companies can attract users with the right content posted on social media. Based on this fact, the authors used a dental clinic's brand Facebook page to achieve the aim of the research.…”

Promoting Social Media Engagement Via Branded Content Communication: A Fashion Brands Study on Instagram

“…The opportunities provided by social media for companies and brands to communicate with users and potential clients has increased the use of social media and the creation of branded content as an essential tool in the digital communication process, promoting an extensive transformation in the way brand content is created, distributed, and released (Núñez-Barriopedro et al, 2013;Wahid & Gunarto, 2021). Moreover, communication processes have been enhanced by the direct dialogue offered by social media among brands and clients, becoming two-way and real-time interactions favored by the penetration of networks among all the populations that use them intensively, and promoting different experiences such as happiness (Castillo-Abdul, Pérez-Escoda, & Civila, 2021;Cuesta-Valiño et al, 2021), positive feelings (Casaló et al, 2020), or sharing attitudes (Choi & Lee, 2019). In this sense, social media emerges as a more suitable scenario for maintaining continuous and ubiquitous communication, establishing an in-depth relationship with audiences that demand increasing amounts of information from brands (Castillo-Abdul, Bonilla-del-Río, & Núñez-Barriopedro, 2021).…”

“…The mediation of the internet has extensively modified relationships between brands and customers. Social networks have transformed consumers' role, emerging like active users where brands interact directly with them (Castillo-Abdul, Pérez-Escoda, & Civila, 2021). Branded content as a network marketing technique is firmly positioning itself in the online environment not only as an effective strategy for the creation of content related to brands (Chen & Shupei, 2019), but also as an effective narrative tool in the fight against the recent phenomenon known as infodemic, which emerged and was fostered during the Covid-19 pandemic situation with fake news (Pérez-Escoda et al, 2021).…”