Last modified: 2017-03-25
Abstract
One of the building blocks of social media is sharing which enables consumers to “exchange, distribute, and receive content†(Kietzmann et al., 2011). No longer are consumers passive recipients of marketing messages. Instead, consumers are now creating content that has the potential to influence others through social media. Therefore, how to effectively engage and influence consumer sharing is an important marketing question and studies have emerged to understand factors influencing consumers’ likelihood to share and their characteristics (e.g., Hennig-Thurau et al., 2004; Taylor et al., 2012).  One of the important constructs is involvement, first reported in 1966 by Ernest Dichter. His major finding was the identification of four motivations for consumers to communicate with brands: product involvement, self-involvement, other involvement and message involvement. In the consumer behavior literature, the concept of product involvement is well established and studies have found a positive relationship between product involvement and brand loyalty (Traylor, 1981, 1983; Park. 1996; LeClerc and Little, 1997; Iwasaki and Havitz, 1998; Quester and Lim, 2003). However, it is not clear what other types of involvement could affect consumer behavior in social media. Building on prior research, this paper explores potential behavioral consequences such as brand loyalty and purchase intention of consumer involvement in social media.