Brand loyalty in enterprise microblogs: Influence of community commitment, IT habit, and participation

Аннотация

Purpose – With the prevailing microblogging phenomenon, many marketers have created their microblog accounts to promote products, advertise brands, and attract consumers. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of consumers’ community commitment, information technology (IT) habit, and participation on their brand loyalty in the context of enterprise microblogs. Design/methodology/approach – A total of 364 valid data were collected from fans or followers of enterprise microblogs through a survey on Weibo.com. The data were analyzed with smart partial least squares. Findings – Community commitment and IT habit directly lead to brand loyalty and indirectly affect brand loyalty through the mediating influence of participation. Information quality, perceived expertise, and social interaction are antecedents of community commitment. Satisfaction, importance, and social interaction positively affect IT habit. Research limitations/implications – To enhance the generalizability of the study, future studies may examine findings in other platforms (e.g. Twitter) with a large sample size.