The Importance of Understanding the Motivations behind Consumer Brand-Related Activities on Facebook for Brand Managers

'Check-ins' a form of consumer brand-related activities on Facebook

In a world dominated by social media applications and a consumer group who are no longer inhibited or afraid to ‘share’ about their recent purchases and even their personal interests, it is vital for brand managers to understand and recognise the importance of consumer User-Generated Content (UGC) and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Consumers are now “active communicators and creators of content”, transcending the traditional role of passive recipients of marketing activity (Page & Pitt, 2011, i). 

Users can share adverts to other users

In this article we explore the recent phenomenon of consumer brand-related activities on Facebook, with reference to my recent academic findings (Sparkes, 2013). 


As any casual or avid Facebook user will know, individuals constantly use the platform as a ‘sounding board’ for the dissemination of their feelings, interests, and daily activities. Furthermore users can appropriate the Social Networking Site (SNS) to create, share, and communicate various experiences, such as with brands and products, amongst their ‘network’ of peers made up of friends, family, colleagues, and acquaintances. It is when these online activities communicate about a brand or become ‘brand-related’ which marketing managers need to pay attention to.   

Consumer brand-related activities or UGC on web 2.0 applications have been defined as, “the voluntary creation and public distribution of personal brand meaning undertaken by non-marketers outside the branding routines and enabled by multimedia technology” (Arnhold, 2010, p. 33). These activities on Facebook have been observed and include: ‘liking’ a brand page, uploading a picture of a new purchase, sharing marketing content such as viral advertisements, and  use of the ‘check-in’ location feature all of which can be performed from a mobile device (Sparkes, 2013). 

Through these interactions consumers reveal and display their brand preferences (Chuan & Yoojung, 2011) and provide tools for sharing information, preferences and expressing opinions with peers almost anywhere (Keenan & Sheeri, 2009; Jansen et al., 2012; Heinrichs, Lim, & Lim, 2011). This has completely changed the way that we interact with brands (Singh & Sonnenburg, 2012). SNS in general have become a key venue for consumers to discover new brands and products and also to learn about unfamiliar ones, facilitating purchase decisions and forming brand attitudes, with over 22.5 million using it for these purposes (Knowledge Networks, 2011 sourced from Naylor et al., 2012; Kozinets et al., 2010; Wang, Yu, & Wei, 2012). This points to the changing nature of consumer behaviour as new technologies evolve and highlights the value of understanding the motivations behind the facilitation of consumer brand-related online activity for marketers.

Although marketing analytic and research instruments are increasingly being employed to measure opinion and interaction with brands, it is still unknown whether these techniques can uncover the motivations behind why consumers chose to engage in brand-related activities on social media website such as Facebook. A large amount of academic research has revealed the motivations behind consumers use of social media sites. These drives include, socialising, entertainment, information (Park, Kee, & Valenzuela. 2009) and personal identity and self-expression uses (Shao, 2009; Courtois et al., 2009). Facebook has frequently been used for these studies due its popularity around the globe. It is currently the largest SNS, boasting 1.1 billion users with an average of 20 minutes per day being spent on the site by consumers, over 350 million photos being uploaded daily (DMR, 2013). However, these past studies have failed to explore the antecedents for users engaging in brand-related activities online.

My study recently undertaken in the summer of 2013 has added weight to the nascent literature regarding this phenomenon (Sparkes, 2013). The only research to look directly at the motivations behind brand-related online activity has been that of Muntinga, Moorman, and Smit (2011). This trail-blazing study uncovered six main motivations for engagement in brand-related activities on social media sites these were: entertainment, social interaction, personal identity, information, remuneration and empowerment (ibid). My research looked to augment this work by targeting one specific uncovered motivation, personal identity, in one particular SNS, Facebook. 

Using the latest in marketing qualitative research techniques the findings yielded some interesting implications for academics and practitioners alike. Via a netnography followed by online interviews the outcomes supplemented the research done by Muntinga, Moorman, and Smit (2011). The research borrowed concepts from social psychology to see the extent to which personal motivations such as the construction of identity, self-presentation, self-expression, and social approval played a role in why users chose to employ brand-related content on their Facebook timeline.

Here are the main findings of the research:

• Some participants were motivated to utilise brand-related activities and content as part of broader online ‘identity projects’. Driven by the ability to make identity claims through the content.
• Brand-related content could be used to make a self-identity expression. For instance many participants often incorporated personal brand meaning, or recommendations, or brand sentiment with their posted content. This helps provide other Facebook users with an insight into who the user is and what their interests are.
• Findings demonstrated that users’ engagement with brand-related content affords another self-presentation strategy, each with short-term behavioural tactics. The capability to give others an image of one’s personality through brand-related activity provides a motivation for its utilisation.
• The results develop and enrich the studied concept of ‘selective self-presentation’. Prior studies have shown how the element of Facebook’s controllability allows users to careful select which facets of their character they would like to highlight (Zhao, Grasmuck, & Martin, 2008; Toma & Hancock, 2013). These selections are usually ‘socially desirable’ ones, presenting a favourable image and enhanced impression. Some participants would be more inclined to share brand-related content which correlated with their offline personality, suggesting a conscious process of selection. Participants were keen to disseminate their interests with their ‘friends’ and if there was congruence between the brand-related content and their own personality traits, then they would decide to share this and attempt to create the desired impression. Thus, through the selection of brand-related content a self-identity expression could be made. This outcome provides an incentive for users to share brand-related content.
• ‘Self-promotional’ motives were observed within activities such as uploading photos of new products. Thus through brand-related content users can appropriate its agenda for their own personal goals, forming a self-presentation tactic.
• Users can also use the activities to form a symbolic association with a brand. Actions on Facebook such as ‘liking’, ‘checking-in’ at a location, sharing of marketing action and photos of new purchases, enable the user to make an affiliation with brands, products, and services. For instance, an assumption can be asserted that other Facebook ‘friends’ can view an individual’s ‘likes’ of brands, and through the symbolic associations emanating from the brand’s image and personality, gain an insight into the individual’s character.
• Users receive approval for their brand-related activities. This is resultant from an inherent need to be liked and approved by others. By conspicuously posting brand-related content on this platform, supporting a large following, it allows for positive feedback to be assimilated. Through these comments and ‘likes’ of content, the user is able to feel ‘liked’ by others and gain social approval.

How these findings can help the marketing manager:

• Consumer brand-related content on Facebook can reveal brand sentiment, brand preferences, brand associations, overall judgements and feelings towards products, the type of customer, and the nature of brand relationships. From the brand managers’ perspective this can yield useful knowledge about the ‘consumer mind-set’ (Keller, Aperia, & Georgson, 2012) and further help adoption of ‘a consumer-dominant’ approach in social media (Heinonen, 2011).
• Brand-related activities not only provide data with regards to the brand, but also give insight into consumer behaviour and data on the consumer himself/herself.
• Knowing that engagement with brand-related activities on Facebook is partly induced by the ability to construct identity and self-present, allows brand managers to stimulate this motivation and activity. The objective of social media marketing is to create content that users want to share. In this way managers could look to instigate sharing of their Facebook campaigns by enabling interaction and modification of the content in such a way which allows the user to make a personal identity statement and impression to other users, or to facilitate a form of self-promotion.

By Harry Sparkes

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