Determinants of Brand Recall in Social Networking Sites

Introduction

Today, consumers are more than passive buyers and audience members; they are also creators and distributors of media content (Vanden Bergh et al., 2011). Social network sites (SNS), which are sets of individuals, organizations and social entities connected by a set of social relationships such as friendship, co-working or information exchange (Garton, Haythornthwaite, & Wellman, 1997) also take part in the distribution of marketing information by allowing users to actively engage with branded-content delivered to them via sponsored stories, stories about friends, page publishing or ads coupled with social connotations. Since consumers typically judge information regarding the marketplace provided by other consumers to be more trustworthy and credible (Pornpitakpan, 2004), leveraging user-generated or -distributed content in social media is imperative for marketers (Liu-Thompkins, 2012; Schivinski & Dabrowski, 2014). The value of these practices has been well documented in the context of word of mouth, or referral effects (Chu & Kim, 2011; Keller & Fay, 2012; Lee & Youn, 2009).

More recently the breadth of the domain of inquiry expanded to include more detailed issues such as the antecedents of consumer perceptions and responses toward advertisements on social networks (Soares & Pinho, 2014), motivations for consumer engagement with brand pages (Kabadayi & Price, 2014; Logan, 2014), the effects of likes and friends’ likes on Facebook brand pages in influencing brand related outcomes (Phua & Ahn, 2014; Tsai & Men, 2013), and development of a typology of Facebook fans (Wallace, 2014). However, despite the managerial relevance, the impact of delivering brand impressions [i.e., exposure to the brand elements in a manner that strengthens overall brand evaluation (Dillon et al., 2001)] in social media on the state of brand-related knowledge stored in the memory (i.e., brand awareness) has been largely missing in the relevant literature. The main reason for this conspicuous lack of researcher interest on this issue conceivably lies in the practical difficulties of employing a full-scope experimental research (preferably live on platforms such as Facebook) capturing the essential components of social media experience, which constitutes the dominant approach in assessing brand awareness in the literature. One of the most interesting researches on this area was conducted by Alves and Antunes (2015), who found out that consumers expect to personal advantages through proximity to the brands on the Internet and that the activity of following brands on social networks impacts on purchase decision processes of customers.

Thus it can be stated that as this new marketing medium unfolds, brands enthusiastically race to establish a presence in SNs (Malhotra et al., 2013; Rohm et al., 2013), however with a very limited understanding of the true impact of their activities on brand-awareness. Today, the key metrics developed to measure effectiveness of brand communications in SNS are based on simple interaction counts and talk-about (e.g., the number of mentions, likes, shares, comments, views, re-tweets), saying very little about the extent to which these incidences positively contribute to brand awareness (Lipsman et al., 2012; Phua & Ahn, 2014). Over-reliance on such metrics adds to the difficulty of grasping the full promise of social media marketing. As such, current practice and research lacks evidence to what extent brand impressions delivered via social media influences brand recall.