Consumers often use luxury products to signal their aspirational selves. In social media, consumers can publicly affiliate with such products and brands virtually without having to physically own them. This research demonstrates how social media can enable consumers to engage with aspirational...

Consumers frequently express themselves by posting about products in social media. As consumers can use physical products to signal their identities, posting products in social media may be a way for consumers to virtually signal identity. Paradoxically, we propose that there are conditions...