Does facebook group engagement moderate smartphone brand preference?: An analysis using structural equation modeling

• Main Authors: Guillen, Nelson B., Jr., Bautista, Reynaldo A., Jr.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2018
• Subjects: Social Media
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/faculty_research/11712
• Institution: De La Salle University

Facebook group engagement (FGE) refers to specific social group participation, engaging relationships with topics, hobbies, and interests among millennials. Facebook application allows users to engage in community relationships where the organization or a specific person can post events and activities to improve social and economic aspects of the community. Millennials were among the heavy users of Facebook spending at least 4 hours and 17 minutes per day. Moreover, millennials were more likely to engage with smaller groups where they had some sort of relationship or connection based on self-concept. While millennials, in general, do want updates and other information from Facebook, they are interested in information about the functional congruity of a certain brand which affects their preference on what they think is a good or bad product. Like the tenets of Social Exchange Theory, if the costs outweighed the benefits such as excessive notifications, then millennials would actively leave the group. Indeed, Facebook peers were also influential in establishing and maintaining this relationship. The growth of social media groups has been a remarkable phenomenon, bringing together networks of millions of Facebook users around the globe. The path analytic model of Sirgy was utilized to assess the factors relating to brand preference. Indeed, self-concept/product image congruity positively influences functional congruity. Hence, self-congruity type processing is more likely to occur prior to functional congruity type of processing in the consumer context, and then the overall evaluation of functional attributes in turn influence brand preference. This study validated whether FGE moderate the relationship between functional congruity and brand preference. FGE is a strong strategic marketing platform with which companies can use to engage with their consumers increasing traffic in their stores and website.