Do social media marketing activities enhance customer equity? An empirical study of luxury fashion brand. Journal of Business research

From Digital Culture & Society

Contents 1 Context 2 Overview 3 Strengths and Weaknesses 4 Assessment

[edit] Context

Luxury brands are beginning to incorporate social media marketing in their marketing budgets. The world is becoming a small place due to the increasing popularity of social media, this is making it easier for businesses to market their brands and connect with their customers. Businesses are in the search for new ways to market their products and services, and social media is the way to do it.

[edit] Overview

The article by Kim and Ko (2012) discusses the way in which luxury brands use social media marketing to examine the different affects that it has on a number of activities. These activities are value equity, relationship equity, brand equity, customer equity, and purchase intention of the customer. Throughout the article, the authors analyze the relationship and significance between these activities and the five constructs of social media which are, entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization, and word of mouth.

[edit] Strengths and Weaknesses

One strength of this article is that the authors explain the impact on a brand’s reputation. The authors also give statistics about the relationship between customers buying habits and social media. Another strength is the sample size of luxury brand consumers, which was 362 people, that were surveyed to generate the data for the report.

Despite the number of strengths, there are a few weaknesses in the article. First, the instrument used to measure social media marketing was not as effective as it should’ve been. Second, the study was done in Korea which has a different culture than western societies, so the findings will differ from findings if they were done in North America for example.

[edit] Assessment

In conclusion, the article addresses the positive and possible negative effects of luxury brands using social media to market. The article describes the relationship between the activities and constructs of social media and the consumer purchasing decision