The influence of enterprise microblogging on consumer loyalty

Purpose: This paper aims to explore how enterprise microblogging can influence consumer loyalty and thus generate business value for firms. The study aims to expand traditional brand community theory. Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on brand community theory, social identity theory and usage and gratifications theory. Using a pre-survey of the fans of an enterprise microblog and a random sample survey of such fans on Sina Weibo, the authors tested the structural equation model with LISREL, which includes multiple fit indices. Findings: The paper provides empirical insights about how enterprise microblogging can influence consumer loyalty and thus generate business value for firms. It suggests that consumers’ perceived value could strengthen their microblog identification, which will influence their perceived relationship with the enterprise and its products directly and indirectly through the mediation of enterprise identification. Perceived relationship can further influence purchase and recommendation intentions. Research limitations/implications: Because of the chosen data collecting approach, the research results may be still subjective. Moreover, the study overlooks the effects of the different types of enterprise microblogging and consumers. Practical implications: Enterprises should operate their official microblogging from the perspective of maintaining brand community to improve consumer loyalty. They can generate more value for consumers through their microblogging and predict the operating performance by evaluating the degree of consumers’ relationship perception. Originality/value: This paper considers enterprise microblogging as a new form of virtual brand community and identifies its features, and expands theories of brand community, and social media/IT business value, social identity theory and gratifications theory.