Investigating the role of social media marketing on value co-creation and engagement: An empirical study in China and Hong Kong

Despite promising conceptual developments in value co-creation and consumer-brand engagement (CBE), the scholarly attention afforded to the importance of social media marketing (SMM) activities in strengthening consumers’ intention for value co-creation and CBE is limited. SMM is conceptualised as a hierarchical construct with five dimensions: entertainment, customisation, interaction, electronic-word-of-mouth (EWOM) and trendiness. This study examines the role of SMM in building value co-creation and CBE, as well as repurchase intention and on-going search behaviour as behavioural responses. Based on primary data from a survey of 392 smartphone users in China and Hong Kong, we use partial least squares - structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypotheses. The findings show that effective SMM strategies lead to the strengthening of value co-creation, CBE, repurchase intention and ongoing search behaviour. It is also found that there is a significant difference in the impact of CBE on repurchase intention between China and Hong Kong consumers. These findings contribute to the marketing literature by empirically validating the five elements in the SMM construct, providing intelligence on how SMM can drive value co-creation and CBE. The findings also enrich the marketing literature by showing that value co-creation acts as an antecedent of CBE, driving consumers’ behavioural intention, reflected by on-going search behaviour and repurchase intention.