Exploring social media branded customer experience and engagement

Purpose This study draws insights from the consumer culture theory to explore the influence of social media branded content dimensions-self-identity, social bonding, aesthetics, humor, and utilitarian on customers’ brand engagement through sharing, likes, and comments. Design/methodology/approach Data was gathered from 417 social media users in Ghana using a questionnaire and analyzed using Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). Findings The PLS-SEM result shows that social media-branded self-identity engages social media users through comments; the aesthetic nature of social media-branded content influences users to comment and share, and the utilitarian nature of social media-branded content influences social media users to like the content. The fsQCA findings reveal several configurations of social media experience dimensions -aesthetics, humor, self-identity, social, and utilitarian that resulted in high levels of comments, likes, and shares, respectively. Originality/value The value of this study lies in identifying individual social media branded content experiences that influence customer engagement through multi-method data analysis and the development of a conceptual framework underpinned by consumer culture theory (CCT) from an emerging market context.