“An exploratory study, investigating what motivates consumers to engage with businesses who brand their products on social media”

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore and gain an insight into the motivations that drive consumers to engage with businesses who use social media to brand their products. While social media is now widespread and most businesses are integrating it into their marketing and communication strategies, most of the existing research mainly focuses on the fact that consumers following and engaging with their favourite brands can be beneficial to the business. However, little research has been done on what motivates consumers to take the time to follow and engage with brands from the consumer perspective. Instead of relying solely on marketing communications, brands should try to engage and participate with their consumer’s social media activities. A quantitative approach through the form of an online Likert scale survey was used, to help gain an insight from a consumer’s perspective as to why they follow and engage with consumers on social media. The study was particularly interested in females between the ages of 16 and 30. The main motivations shown by this research where consumers wanting to be made aware of sale promotions running, followed by consumers looking to gain inspiration. Motivations that showed to be less prominent were for consumers to find similar individuals with the same interests, followed by consumers wanting to find out reliable business news. By understanding the motivations behind consumer engagement, it is thought that these can then be utilised by businesses to ensure maximum efficiency when using their channels to fulfil their consumer’s expectations and provide the content that they are searching for. On the other hand, it can also be useful for the consumer to be provided with the content that they are interested in and find the most useful.