Facebook group engagement, brand preference, and brand community: A moderated mediation analysis of smartphones

• Main Author: Guillen, Nelson B., Jr
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2020
• Subjects: Brand choice; Consumers' preferences; Smartphones; Branding (Marketing); Marketing; Social Media
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/9541
• Institution: De La Salle University

This research aims to investigate the mediating effect of Facebook group engagement (FGE) in smartphone brand preference (BP) and brand community (BC). The extended self-congruity model was used in this study, which was operationalized by identifying self-congruity (SC), functional congruity (FC), brand preference (BP), and brand community (BC). This study had randomly selected 300 millennial respondents ages 19-29 years old using Facebook Insights for the survey poll (N=300). Confirmatory factor analysis and model testing were conducted using structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). In the overall framework, results showed that SC positively influences FC; FC positively influences BP, and BP positively influences BC while FGE mediates the relationship of BP and BC (with p-values ≤ 0.01). The direct linear relationship of R2 was related to the predictive relevance of overall and generation based models in Q2. Hence, cut-scores were all above 0.5 or acceptable. For the T-test, coefficients were all above 1.96 which is considered significant at 0.05 or 95% confidence level. The study suggests that marketers should strive to develop product images that are consistent with the identifiable brand community. With this trend, they need to develop appropriate content for improved engagement with Facebook groups as a primary social medium and prospective sales channel.