Cultivating connections: exploring the influence of user-generated content on social and consumer brand engagement
Creators: name: Ali, Adnan
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024

description: Background: Marketers are increasingly interested in the concept of brand engagement,particularly during the current era of social media, which connects people in real time across the world. Social media users (henceforth SMUs) create content when they interact online on social media platforms. This content is called user generated content (henceforth, UGC) whichis not just about the personal lives of people. Rather, it involves SMUs talking about their experiences, including. This brings brands into the scope of their discussions. When peopletalk about the same brand, or create UGC about it, this leads to e-WOM as there are different avenues available to SMUs on social media platforms to create UGC. This al has a significant impact on other SMUs who are at the receiving end of this UGC. Consequently, this creates social brand-, and consumer brand engagement. This necessitates some exploration of the role of UGC in creating brand engagement. Objective: The current research explores how different types of SMUs create, exchange, shareand consume UGC, and it examines the resultant social brand engagement and consumer brand engagement that subsequently occurs. The context is Islamic banking. Method: The research is intended to explore a social reality, which requires digging into a social situation involving multiple layers, i.e., types of UGC, types of SMUs, and types of brand engagement, and the interactions between these. the intention of the study is not to evaluate variables, but to explore social realities. Hence, a social constructionist approach is used. Primary data were collected from thirty-two participants through semi-structured interviews. Since the aim is to gather thick, descriptive data, semi-structured interviews were undertaken instead of structured interviews. Hence, the social constructionist approach is justified. All other methodological choices are exercised accordingly. Findings: The study finds that there are different motivational reasons why SMUs create, share, consume and exchange UGC resulting in brand engagement. These include, but are not limited to, Narrative Threads of Wisdoms with other SMUs, posting to demonstrate a sense of responsibility, sharing rewards, and to enjoy their position as opinion leaders. The research also identifies that UGC creators vary by type and there are creators, passive participants, consumers/collectors, and criticizers. Several social exchange factors were also found which enhance the effectiveness of UGC. These factors comprise content expertise, social trust, product usage, and relevance. Originality: This research is the first to conceptualize UGC and consumer brand engagement from the perspective of a social constructionism epistemological, and relativist ontological position. It highlights two dimensions of brand engagement: social brand engagement and consumer brand engagement in the context of Islamic banks. Moreover, the research also buildson social exchange theory to conceptualize the process of social brand-, and consumer brand engagement. It is the first study to apply this theory in the context of social media platforms as a source of brand engagement by applying social exchange theory.