Rahim & Bakare ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

PERCEIVED CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

AND CONSUMER BRAND ENGAGEMENT IN THE
AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY
Rahim Ajao Ganiyu1 & Bakare, R.D.2
1&2
Department of Business Administration,
University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria.
For Correspondence, Email: abdulrahimajao@yahoo.com

ABSTRACT
The capacity of social media platforms to accommodate a huge audience of diverse clusters and
interests has propelled businesses across industries to adopt social media to create and foster
engagement with their customers. This study examined the perceived characteristics of social media
platforms and consumer brand engagement in the automobile industry. Descriptive survey research
design was used to gather information from participants with the aid of structured questionnaire. The
population of the study consisted of 862 postgraduate students of University of Lagos. Convenience
sampling approach was adopted to draw a sample of 192 respondents; however, the empirical results
were based on the analysis of 183 valid responses. Hypotheses were tested using Pearson correlation
and hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis. The findings revealed that all the five
dimensions of social media characteristics consisting of participation, conventionality,
connectedness, community and communality, and openness are positive and significantly related to
one another and consumer brand engagement. Openness and conventionality dimensions of social
media predicted consumer brand engagement in the automobile industry. The study showed that both
gender and age are not significant predictors of consumer brand engagement. Based on the findings,
the study concludes that the transformational opportunities created by social media platforms have
become a solid avenue for businesses to foster engagement with their customers. The study
recommends that companies desirous of improving engagement with their customers should develop
strategies such as conversational marketing and relationship marketing tactics among others to
enhance their social media communities by constructing effective social media toolkits, appropriate
content and expressive conversations that will appeal to diverse users.
Keywords: Age, Automobile industry, Brand, Consumer brand engagement, Gender, Perceived
characteristics of social media.

INTRODUCTION
The progressive growth of the World Wide Web is remarkably changing the adoption and usage of
Internet-based applications, such as social media platforms to foster interaction and promote
collaboration between businesses and their target market. Among all the numerous platforms
facilitated by the expansion of Web 2.0, social media is conceivably the most important application
(Miller, 2009). Social media is a computer-based or technology-aided platform that enables the
sharing of thoughts, opinions, and information through virtual communities. To date, a number of
community platforms such as Asian Avenue, Black Planet, and MiGente among others have emerged
after the launch of the first Social Networking Sites-SNSs in 1997. Socially-organized SNSs solicit
wider viewers through platforms such as LinkedIn, Visible Path, and Xing to mention a few are more
tailored to fulfil the requirements of professionals. Social media has become universal and very
pervasive, transforming the way people across culture and strata communicate, interact and socialize.
According to Global Web Index (2020), social media usage differs significantly across age bracket,
but more useful is noted from youth of age bracket 18–32 years. According to Statista (2018), the

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most widespread profile-based SNSs is Facebook with roughly 1.97 billion users. Social
media permits even the smallest business to network with their target market by enabling a dynamic
framework through online presence that institute a dialogue with a wider audience - comprising
existing customers, new prospects, competitors and other stakeholders. Social media allow brands to
capture insights from conversations stirring across online platforms, blogs, and video-streaming to
enhance marketing strategies. As a result of remarkable social media growth, numerous businesses are
trying to connect themselves (and/or their brands) with customers via these platforms.
One of the industries that have adopted social data and intelligence enabled through social media is
the automobile industry. Automotive industry, comprises those businesses and activities engaged in
the manufacture of motor vehicles, comprising components or parts, such as engines and bodies, but
excluding tires, batteries, and fuel. According to the statistics released by Press Release (2019),
the global automotive industry is estimated to reach 1,14,250 thousand units by 2024. On the basis of
type, the passenger car subdivision accounted for the larger market share of 75.09% in 2017, with
a market value of 73,356 thousand; and it is expected to register the higher Compound Annual
Growth Rate-CAGR of 2.9% during the forecast period (Press Release, 2019). The African
automotive market is worth USD 28.45 billion in 2020, and it is projected to reach USD 39.87 billion
by 2026, recording a CAGR of 5.55% over the forecast period (Mordor Intelligence, 2020). The
demand for new vehicles across the African countries increased progressively up to 2018, slumped in
2019 by 4% to roughly 1.17 million units, compared to 1.22 million units in 2018.
Passenger cars accounted for 73.81%, while commercial vehicles accounted for 26.18% (Mordor
Intelligence, 2020).
Automotive industry in Nigeria dates back to the 1950s and comprises mainly the production of
passenger cars and commercial trucks (Yusuf & Cross, 2020). The automobile industry in Nigeria
gained relevance in the early 1960s. Decades after, the Federal government engaged in local-
automobile assembly arrangements with automobile manufacturers in Europe. The Nigerian
automobile industry can be classified into two- "New" and "Used", but, the latter constitute a major
portion of aggregate import and demand. Towards the end of the 1980s, the industry was badly
affected by a downturn in the economy, policy inconsistency and the higher cost of locally factory-
made cars compared to imported cars. Subsequently, used foreign cars dominated auto sales in the
country, and the upsurge of these affordable used cars destructively obstructed the policy agenda of
backward integration in the industry. The 21st century has seen the arrival of modern, classy cars
which are before now, only a fantasy of the imagination. Today, countless top worldwide automobile
businesses such as Toyota, Honda, Mercedes Benz, Lexus, and BMW to mention a few have taken the
Nigerian automobiles market by storm, rolling out diverse models of cars to the delight of customers.
Today, the potential of the industry is still very strong notwithstanding several challenges. In Nigeria,
local auto companies have spring up, most notable auto plant is Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing
Company. Other players are IMC Steyr Motor, Massalia Motors, and Monaplex Industries Nigeria
Limited.
About two decades back, the automotive industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars in
advertising yearly, but, now counts on social media as major marketing channels to promote their
brands. According to Statista, (2018), investments in social media advertising globally recorded $32
billion in 2017 and projected to reach $48 billion by 2021. Chappuis, Gaffey, and Parvizi (2011)
stated that through various social media platforms, consumers develop knowledge about
brands, broadcast brands‘ content and i n t e r a c t with b r a n d s . The notion of consumer or
customer engagement (CE) has been examined across industries and there is a general accord that it is
viewed as a multidimensional and context specific with five components consisting of identification,
enthusiasm, attention, absorption, and interaction (So, King, & Sparks, 2014). According to Vivek,
Beatty, Dalela, and Morgan (2014), in most research, CE is conceptualized in term of a combination
of cognitive elements (being involved in a firm's activities); behavioral components (participation in
the firm's activities); and emotional dimensions (feeling positive about a business's activities).

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User or brand engagement is a major performance index for companies and has become a
prevalent means to evaluate the degree of firm interactivity across social media platforms (Balbi,
Misuraca, & Scepi, 2018). Engagement rate measures the degree of connections that content on
social media generates among users (Bakhshi, Shamma, & Gilbert, 2014). The depth and frequency
of engagement rate differ across social media platforms, but, by and large, it assesses the fraction of
people who respond to a post through ―liking‖ or commenting. Research on social media engagement
classified influences that propel social media engagement into several clusters: those that are
connected to the post‘s creator i.e., the creator‘s gender, age, number of followers (Hollebeck, Glynn,
& Brodie, 2014); background of the post‘s i.e., time, setting (Ellering, 2016); features related to the
content i.e., words, tags, visual content, images, videos, and audio content (Trackmaven, 2016). As
expressed by Veloutsou and Moutinho (2009), brand success is largely based o n the
development o f relationships between brands and customers, as against, the traditional
approach that focused l argely on the marketing mix elements consisting of product, price,
place, and promotion (Pansari & Kumar, 2017).
Consumer brand engagement-CBE is a comparatively new notion in marketing literature (Carvalho
& Fernandes, 2018; Schivinski, 2019), In addition, studies on CBE within the context of social
media are still relatively restricted (Jin & Huang, 2017; Subair, Solomon, & Deborah, 2019).
Research carried out by Lee, Hosanagar, and Nair (2018) reported that roughly 1% of an average
company‘s Facebook fans actually engage with well-known or familiar brand by commenting or
demonstrating liking. While numerous brands have established social media manifestation, it is not
clear what form of content works better and for which company, and in what form (Lee et al., 2018). A
review of previous studies in the domain of social media revealed scanty work on the link between
social media and a number of consumer context phenomena such as customer involvement, consumer
brand self-expressive and consumer brand engagement to mention a few. According to Lee et al.
(2018), appraisal of the influence of content on subsequent engagement is complicated by non-random
allocation of messages to users. Bai, Yao and Dou (2015) stated that engaging customers
progressively and appropriately is a continuous challenge for some businesses, most especially in
online context. According to Zhu and Bao (2018), one fundamental complication towards improving
engagement via social media is that numerous people use social media inactively, instead of interacting
with others via the platform. Moro, Rita, and Vala (2016) claimed that assessing user engagement
with content on social media platforms is problematic to address, as there are often diverse media
goals, thus, requiring a multi-channel tactic to improve success.
Although there is a remarkable upsurge of literature on the popularity and impact of social media,
nevertheless, the distinctive characteristic of social media marketing data is somehow neglected and
this is very crucial to media strategy from evolutionary social systems perspective (Bo, Wen-Huang,
Yongdong, Qiushi, Jintao, & Tao, 2019). Most previous studies on social media research focused on
young adults, mostly undergraduate students whose usage of social media is mostly connected to
social engagement and collaboration. To some extent, the connection of social media to consumer
brand engagement has not received significant research attention. This viewpoint would
hopefully permits for the opportunity to capture vital facets, significance, and motivations
associated with social media marketing that extend beyond social relations largely linked
to social media adoption and usage. In view of the aforementioned research background, the
objective of this study is to investigate perceived social media characteristics and consumer brand
engagement among postgraduate students of University of Lagos. On the basis of the aforementioned
objective, it is hypothesized that:
Perceived characteristics of social media platforms (consisting of participation,
openness, conversation, community, and connectedness) do not significantly
influence consumer brand engagement of Postgraduate Students' of University of
Lagos, Nigeria

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CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Characteristics of Social media
Social media has been conceptualized in multiplicities of ways. According to Boyd and Ellison
(2008), the description of social media as a platform to generate profiles, create explicit and traverse
relationships has been the most widely definition of social media. Social media can be viewed as
Internet-based applications constructed on Web 2.0. Dykeman (2008) conceptualized social media as
the platforms through which people disseminate digital, creative content, offer and obtain real-time
feedback through online discussion, comment and assessment, and integrate changes or modifications
to the original content. Social media has been viewed as a platform which permit profile generation
and visibility of relationships among users (Boyd & Ellison, 2008), web-based presentations which
offer functionality for disseminating information, relationships building, grouping of people along
areas of interest, conversation and profiling (Kietzmann, Kristopher, Ian, & Bruno, 2011). According
to Khan and Jan (2015), social media can be labelled as many-to-many, participating, user owned,
conversational, openness, mass collaborative, affiliation oriented, and free and easy to use platform.
Social media is a typical concept encompassing diverse configurations with numerous characteristics.
Mayfield (2008) and Kietzmann et al. (2011) advocated five explicit characteristics of social media
platforms, namely: participation, openness, conversationality, community/commonality, and
connectedness. The five dimensions are discussed below.
Participation
Participation can be viewed as the degree to which senders and receivers are enthusiastically engaged
in the interaction through giving of epilogs, inertly observing, and or loitering (Burgoon, Bonito,
Bengtsson, Ramirez, Duibar, & Miczo, 2000). The participatory nature of social media inspires
contributions and reactions from everyone who is a member. The degree of participation blurs the
route between media and audience (Mayfield, 2008). Participation is one of the most distinguishing
features of social media and enables concerned parties to engage in an interface. As a foremost
constituent of social media, participation creates the require degree of interactivity that enables
participants to engage enthusiastically with others (Burgoon et al., 2000). According to Koh and
Kim (2004), participation is action-framed interactivity. Hoffman and Marek (2010) viewed
participation as user-created content likely to upsurge obligation on the part of the interested
parties.
Conversationality
According to Rafaeli (1988), conversationality is the idyllic of interactivity that permits two-way
communication, and therefore, a vital virtue of social media. Conversationality is founded on
communicational element of interactivity. Related to traditional media, social media permits two-
way dialogues rather than one-directional transmission or dissemination of information to a target
audience. Other conventional communication channels, like television, and radio among others only
offer a linear communication framework (Rowley, 2004). Also, compare to participation that is
behavior/action-generated, conversationality is founded in communicational element of
interactivity. As expressed by Rafaeli (1988), conversationality is the b a s i s of interactivity, and
therefore a vital feature of social media.
Connectedness
Connectedness may be viewed as - relational, community, and overall social connections (Teixeira,
1992). Contemplating the notion as a form of relational arrangement, Lee and Robbins (1998)
described social connectedness as a configuration of active and trustful interpersonal behaviors.
According to Stafford, Kline, and Dimmick ( 1999), the physical engagement is viewed to be
ultimate in social relationships; t h e r e f o r e , interpersonal connections can be preserved not
only through face-to-face message but also through facilitated interaction aided by technologies.
Thus, by offering Web links to other spots, possessions, and people, social media permits media
users to oscillate from one facet to others in cyberspace through connectedness (Mayfield, 2008).

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Community and Commonality

Social media permits individuals and business organizations to recognize and communicate with the
people whom they want to be connected with. That is, it provide a framework for individuals and
companies to establish communities rapidly towards relationship building (Mayfield, 2008). Social
media permits individuals and businesses to recognize and communicate with the people of similar
interest. This feature of social media provides a framework for people and firms to create
communities rapidly and foster relationships (Mayfield, 2008). The tendency to build and foster
communities rapidly, assist in sharing common interests.
Openness
Openness is another distinctive feature of social media. According to Mayfield (2008), social media
openness promotes feedback and participation through having few barriers to accessing information
or making remarks on broadcasted information/news (Mayfield, 2008). Social media by their nature
are highly open in term of participation and feedback which foster participation, and sharing of
information or ideas. The openness features of social media limits obstructions to gain access to
information or offering comments (Mayfield, 2008). According to Meadows-Klue (2007), the
connectivity of social media is a frictionless media network where anything can flow. Accordingly,
social media encompasses very restricted flow obstacles in term of applications and technical
transferability (Meadows-Klue, 2007).
Consumer Brand Engagement
Consumer brand engagement is a major concept in web applications that relate to how and the degree
of users interaction with numerous media platforms. Most studies on consumer brand engagement
contemplated it as a behavioral feature that considers all non -transactional behaviors that can impact
firm-customer relationship (Verhoef, 2010). Other academics defined consumer brand engagement
as attitudinal concept. Similarly, numerous descriptions of consumer brand engagement have been
advocated. While some definitions of engagement focus on its multidimensional tendency (Obilo,
Chefor, & Saleh, 2020; Bruno, Daniela, Taresa, & Francisco, 2020), others viewed it with
reference to specific customer undertakings or behavioral configuration (Schivinski,
Christodoulides, & Dabrowski, 2016; Bruno et al., 2020). From behavioral viewpoint of CBE,
Muntinga, Moorman, and Smit (2011) promoted the notion of COBRAs (Consumers‘ Online Brand-
Related Activities), which categorize social media behaviors into usage forms, demonstrating a set
of brand-related online activities by consumer and which differ based on the degree consumer
interactions with social media, consumption engagement, involvement, and generation of media
content (Schivinski et al 2016; Bruno et al., 2020). CBE is gaining impetus because it echoes
more expansively the dynamics of focal brand relationships compared with conventional notion
of engagement (Dwivedi, 2015). According to Dessart, Veloutsou, and Morgan-Thomas
( 2016), the nature of consumer–brand relationships may result to diverse levels of CBE
consisting of affective, emotional and commitment tendency. As a result, customers that are
engaged will be more enthusiastic t o invest t i m e , money and effort o n brand-interactions that
extends beyond ordinary consumption (Keller, 2012).
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Uses and Gratifications Theory
The uses and gratification theory - U&G developed in reaction to the needs to offer practical rationale
why people use certain media and the benefit they obtain from them. The simple postulation of this
theory is that people use mass media for diverse motives and strive for numerous satisfactions
(Asemah, 2011). Diverging from other media influence theories that probe "What does media do to
people? UGT emphasis "what do people do with media? Katz (1959). U&G theory proposes that
media is an extremely accessible product and the audiences are the users of the media product.
According to Luo (2002), U&G theory initiated from the functionalist viewpoint of mass media
communication and it can be described by an inductive technique for developing taxonomies of

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diverse motivations and functions of media use. The U&G theory has been reasonably fruitful in
understanding consumers' drives and behaviors in the context of traditional media such as radio and
TV (Eighmey & McCord, 1998). To many, the theory is considered old. Nonetheless, the advent of
social media blows a new life into this ageing theory (Aisar, Mohd, & Nur, 2015).
Linking Social Media to Consumer Brand Engagement
Social media has become the foundation of our digital news habits and social media Ads have brought
consumers more deeply connected and engaged than before to company‘s brands. Social media is
generally viewed as exhibiting participatory culture that accommodate diverse encounter to foster
engagement (Giaccardi, 2012). In other words, the extensive manifestation of social media offer a
platform for disseminating information to the public space that in an attempt to foster, legitimize
participation and generate innovative ways for engagement. The openness features of social media
are enhanced by social media‗s networking ideology and the availability of easy-to-use frameworks
for generating and disseminating content. The confirmation of openness is widespread as people,
mainly the younger generation, share their views on social media platforms, and how businesses
use corporate blogs to disseminate information and receive a reaction. Contingent on S N S s
f r a m e w o r k s , some f o r m s of social media might be observed to be more open than others
and thus, readily engage more effectively. Rogers (1987) advocated that openness encompass three
forms of behavior: soliciting information, getting information, and reacting on the basis of
information received.
According to Myers, Knox, Pawlowski, and Ropog (1999), the dissimilarity in communication
openness among numerous peer categories is more prominent among people who share mutual
interests. Thus, the crux of openness, either through technical or social frameworks may be viewed
by the perceived ease of disseminating and obtaining contents, information, and reactions by its
users. Barker (2009) reported those older adolescents who conveyed a disconnection from their peer
clusters and perceiving negative self-esteem use social media platforms to accomplish friendship. In
other words, older people strive for identification with others. Wright (2000) claims that the vital
role of social media for ageing individual is to offer social support that permits the users to create
community as a way of disseminating important information, construct meaning and discover other
acquaintance (Haythornthwaite, 2006). According to Mollen and Wilson (2010), interactivity and
telepresence nature of social media upsurge brand engagement. Conversationality in the context of
social media differs according to social media types, because of the fundamental utilities and
frameworks inherent in these social media (Pilch, 2009). As expressed by Enginkaya and Yılmaz
(2014) conversation or conversationality is a vital element, which signifies the role of social
media on the consumers‘ need to communicate with other users and with the brands. A
number of scholars suggested that the level of conversationality can be measured through two-way
communication which relies essentially on feedback, dynamic control, and synchronicity (Liu,
2003).
The central networking framework present in all SNSs enlarges the consequence of connectedness
on the Internet and that is what makes social media exceptional (Boyd & Ellison, 2008). According
to Lee, Draper, and Lee (2001), perceived connectedness is positively connected to intimacy and
bonding with others. From this viewpoint, people that exhibited high connectedness feel close and
friendly with others, recognize with them, and engage with social clusters, whereas people with low
level of connectedness frequently experience emotionally distant tendency from others, consider
themselves as an outsiders, and are not satisfactory for social circumstances that foster engagement
with people or brand. From a facilitated communication setting, connectedness permits people to
link to the outside world and to effortlessly enlarge their experience (Ha & James, 1998).
Social media has also been widely recognized as an effective approach to promoting communities. For
instance, most SNSs were created to support niche demographics in a warm, cloistered community
that promotes engagement (Boyd & Ellison, 2008). While social media promote communities, its
crux is not merely on creating communities which are more uninterrupted and steady in nature, and

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focused on a thought or mutual objective, as opposed to gathering of content. Accordingly, the

community and commonality nature of social media offer a framework that creates and nurtures
communities, but its fundamental usefulness is in connecting individuals and businesses, as
regulated by their sequential needs and benefits at the time of interface. According to Anderson
(2012), three fundamental questions, namely- How stress-free is it to traverse information about the
firm brand? Can such information be relied upon? And how speedily can the choices be evaluated?
Are three probing issues that c o m p a n i e s need to ask themselves to evaluate where their product
falls using the ―decision simplicity index‖ Thus, businesses that make the aforementioned three
questions easier for customers to comprehend are more likely to enjoy significant patronage and
referral (Anderson, 2012).
Schultz and Peltier (2013) presented the narrative of ―Social Media‘s Slippery Slope,‖ to question
whether or how social media can be adopted to leverage consumer engagement into mutually profitable
relationships for both businesses and users. According to Hollebeek et al., (2014) and Niedermeier,
Wang, and Zhang (2016), the above question, has been addressed by the growing literature on social
media engagement, however, interrogation remains a critical issue for business practitioners and
academics. To derive maximum benefits from social media platforms, Ruehl and Ingenhoff (2017)
noted that businesses active strategy should encompass three main tactics: firstly, inspire the
development of interacting communities to offer relevant answers to customers enquiry, support
customers interface, regulate comments, solicit views, recommendations and criticisms,
concentrating largely on the involvement of influential users and opinion leaders; secondly, to
innovate and customize user experience so as to upsurge engagement and loyalty; and thirdly, to
make user a co-partner of business processes. Baker and White (2010) remarked that customers
with strong intents to engage in social media are more likely to behave in accord with their intentions
and thus, display behavioral loyalty to the social media group. According to Vivek et al. (2014), if a
social media user is highly engaged, he/she will acquire intrinsic and extrinsic value from the focus of
engagement and therefore, the strength of engagement will impact the depth of the value generated.
Thus, the more engaged a customer is (i.e., brand, brand community), the more value that can be
created (Hollebeek et al., 2014; TrackMaven, 2016). As a result, active consumer engagement may be
viewed as a social behavior because it encompasses social connections, whereas passive engagement
may be contemplated as para-social behavior because of it one-sided nature (Vivek et al., 2014).
METHODOLOGY
This study used descriptive survey research design. The targeted population for this study comprised
of eight hundred and sixty-two postgraduate students (both full and part-time) in the Department of
Business Administration, Faculty of Management Sciences in 2018/2019 session. The choice of
postgraduate students is based on the fact that an investigation of the connection between perceived
characteristics of social media and consumer brand engagement from their viewpoint would
hopefully permit for the opportunity to capture dynamic aspects, consequences, and drives
associated with social media marketing, from participants who are more mature, a n d
professional, hence, the choice of postgraduate students. Daniel (1999) formula for sample
estimation was used to obtain the sample size. The formula is n=
NZ P(1 P) / d ( N 1)  Z P(1 P) . Using the formula, effective sample size is computed as:
2 2 2

862X1.9620.2(1  0.2) / 0.052 (862  1)  1.9620.2(1  0.2) = 192.

Convenience sampling approach was adopted to survey respondents that are accessible and willing to
participate in the study. The study adopted Mayfield (2008) measures of social media characteristics
consisting of participation, openness, conversationality, community/commonality, and connectedness
to evaluate perceived characteristics of social media. Engagement with social media platforms was
measured using experience items from the study carried out by Bronner and Neijens (2006). For both
measures, participants were asked to indicate their level of agreement with the statements on the
questionnaire on a 7-point Likert scale. Content and face validity of the questionnaire was assessed by
academic scholars prior to reliability assessment. Pilot study was carried out to evaluate the internal

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consistency of the instrument. As shown in Table 1, the Cronbach alpha values of the two variables
and sub-dimensions exceeded the cut-off of α = 0.70. Therefore, the instrument is adjudged to be
reliable (Bryman & Bell, 2011). Data analyses were based on 183 completed and valid copies of
questionnaire retrieved from the respondents. Data collected from the participants were collated and
coded into excel spreadsheet and later transferred into SPSS statistical tool. Descriptive statistics such
as frequency and percentage were run to present a snap view of the participants‘ demographic.
Hypotheses were tested using inferential statistics- Pearson correlation and hierarchical multiple linear
regression analysis.
Table 1: Reliability Test
Variables/Dimensions No. of Items Cronbach alpha (α)
Participation 4 .759
Openness 4 .770
Conversionality 4 .814
Connectedness 4 .711
Community and commonality 4 .741
Social media characteristics 20 .759
Consumer brand engagement 7 .762

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Table 2: Demographics Characteristics of Respondents
Variables Frequency Percentage (%)
Gender
Male 106 57.9
Female 77 42.1
Age Group
Less than 25 years 52 28.4
26 – 40 years 77 42.1
41 – 50 years 45 24.6
51 years and above 9 4.9
Source: Field Survey, 2019
Minimal socio-demographics information such as gender, and age were collected for this study. As
shown in Table 2, participants were 183 postgraduate students of University of Lagos. There were 106
(57.9%) men and 77 (42.1%) women. Regarding their age, 52 (28.4%) were less than 25 years old, 77
(42.1%) were between 26 and 40 years, 45 (24.6%) were between 41 and 50 years, and 9(4.9%) were
between 51 years of age and above.
Perceived social media characteristics (consisting of participation, openness, conversationality,
community, and connectedness) do not significantly influence consumer brand engagement of
Postgraduate Students' of University of Lagos, Nigeria

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Table 3: Correlation Matrix of social media characteristics and consumer brand engagement
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
Participation 2.42 .507 1
Openness 2.41 .485 .767** 1
Conversationality 2.43 .527 .811** .626** 1
Community & Commonality 2.09 .639 .428** .377** .549** 1
Connectedness 2.37 .514 .907** .748** .720** .465** 1
Social media characteristics 2.43 .480 .874** .773** .841** .677** .857 1
Consumer brand engagement 2.93 .468 .638** .501** .586** .302** .515 .497

Table 3 depicts inter-correlations among the five dimensions of social media characteristics, overall
social media characteristics and consumer brand engagement. Pallant (2012) categorization of
correlation values into low (.01), medium (.03), and high (.05) formed the basis of benchmarking and
interpreting the correlation matrix. As shown in Table 3, the mean and standard deviation values for
the five dimensions of social media characteristics, overall social media characteristics and consumer
brand engagement ranged from .209 to .527 and .468 .639. Conversionality dimension of social media
characteristics recorded the highest mean value. The dimension of social media characteristics with
the lowest mean value is community and commonality. The mean values of overall social media
characteristics and consumer brand engagement is relatively is high.
As shown in Table 3, inter-correlations among the dimensions of social media characteristics range
from low, moderate and high positive statistical significant correlations (the correlation ranged from
.377 to .907, p< 0.01). Results of the analysis reveals that participation and openness (r=.767, p<0.01),
participation and conversionality (r=.811, p<0.01), participation and community/commonality r=-
.429, p>0.01), participation and connectedness (r=.907, p<0.01). As depicts in Table 1, openness is
linked with other dimensions as, openness and conversionality (r=.626, p<0.01), openness and
community/commonality r=-.377, p>0.01), and openness and connectedness (r=.748, p<0.01). From
Table 2, conversionality is associated with other dimensions as, conversionality and
community/commonality (r=-.549, p>0.01), and conversionality and connectedness (r=.720, p<0.01).
Table 1 also shows that community/commonality is correlated with connectedness (r=.465, p<0.01).
From Table 3, there exists a statistical low, moderate and high positive significant correlation among
the five dimensions of social media characteristics and consumer brand engagement. Specifically,
participation and consumer brand engagement (r=.538, p<0.01), openness and consumer brand
engagement (r=.501, p<0.01), conversionality and consumer brand engagement (r=.586, p<0.01),
community/commonality and consumer brand engagement (r=-.302, p>0.01), and connectedness and
consumer brand engagement (r=.515, p<0.01). From the above results, the dimension of social media
characteristics that exhibited the highest correlation with consumer brand engagement is
conversionality, while community and commonality exhibited the lowest correlation. The nature of
the correlation among the five dimension of social media characteristics confirmed the five
dimensional structure of social media characteristics promoted by Mayfield (2008). In addition, it
endorses the interactive nature among the five dimensions of social media characteristics (Mahyuddin
& Noah, 2010). To test the hypothesis proposed, two steps hierarchical multiple linear regression is
run.
Table 4: Results of the hierarchical multiple linear regression with step 1 (predictors predicting
consumer brand engagement, controlling for demographic variables)
Source B SE β t P Significant predictor
Gender .013 .071 .013 .177 .859 No
Age .075 .041 .137 1.830 .069 No

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Results for the first block of the hierarchical multiple linear regression are presented in Table 4. The
first step (block 1) of the hierarchical multiple linear regression revealed that both gender and age do
not significantly predicted consumer brand engagement age (β=.137, t=1.830, p=.069 and p>.001),
and gender (β=.013, t=.177, p=.859 and p>.001). Result for step 2 of the hierarchical multiple linear
regression is presented in Table 5. In the second step (block 2) of the hierarchical multiple linear
regression that included all of the five dimensions of social media characteristics as predictor, while
controlling for age and gender.
Table 5: Results of the hierarchical multiple linear regression with step 2 (control variables-age,
gender and predictors predicting consumer brand engagement)
Significant
Source B SE β t P
predictor
Gender .049 .057 .052 .849 .397 No
Age .054 .033 .099 1.634 .104 No
Participation -.111 .164 -.120 .680 .497 No
Openness .192 .091 .199 2.119 .035 Yes
Conversationality .414 .098 .467 4.211 .000 Yes
Community and communality -.036 .054 -.050 -.669 .504 No
Connectedness -.146 .134 .161 1.088 .278 No

As shown in Table 5, only openness (β=.199, t=2.119, p=.035) and conversationality (β=.467,
t=4.211, p=.000) significantly predicted consumer brand engagement. Others, namely gender (β=.052,
t=.849, p=.397, and p>.001), age (β=.099, t=1.634, p=.104, and p>.001), participation (β=-.120,
t=.680, p=.497, and p>.001), community and commonality (β=-.050, t=-.669, p=.504, and p>.001),
and connectedness (β=.161, t=1.088, p=.278, and p>.001) do not significantly predicted consumer
brand engagement. Table 6, presents the summary of the hierarchical multiple linear regression
model.
Table 6: Table Model Summary
Model R R2 Adj. R2 SE ΔR2 F Change Sig. of F Change
1 .135 .018 .007 .467 .018 1.683 .189
2 .624 .389 .365 .373 .371 21.247 .000

As shown in Table 6, the first model revealed the following statistics F (2, 180) = 1.683, p=.189, R =
.135, R2= .018 and adjusted R2=.007. All the five dimensions collectively significantly predicted
consumer brand engagement. In the second model, F (7, 175) = 15.928, p<.001), R= .624, R2= .389
and adjusted R2=.365. Results of the hierarchical multiple linear regression in both models do not
support hypothesis one which states that perceived social media characteristics (consisting of
participation, openness, conversationality, community/commonality, and connectedness) do not
significantly influence consumer brand engagement of Postgraduate Students' of University of Lagos,
Nigeria. From the above statistics, the entire variables predicted 1.8% and 38.9% of consumer brand
engagement in both Model 1 and Model 2 respectively. Thus, it is hypothesized that perceived social
media characteristics (consisting of participation, openness, conversationality,
community/commonality, and connectedness) significantly influence consumer brand engagement of
Postgraduate Students' of University of Lagos, Nigeria.
Findings of this corroborated the view advocated by Bearden and Rose (1990) that consumer
sensitivity to social cues is a driving force of social influence that impact other areas of their behavior,
most remarkably is engagement with brands. The findings of this study corroborated the position of
Habibi, Laroche, and Richard (2014) and Viktor and Viktoría (2018) that stated that a high degree of
engagement behavior in social media results in positive impacts, one of which is consumer brand

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engagement. Jang, Olfman, Ko, Koh, and Kim (2008) maintained that, when the level of interaction
and reciprocity of behavioral tendency connected to social media are frequent, they heighten
consumers‘ perception of brand connection and the value attached to the brand, may upsurge brand
loyalty tendency. The outcome of this study contradicts the findings of studies conducted by Barker
(2009) and Raudonis, Maskeliunas, Stankevicius, and Damasevicius (2017) that documented that
gender dissimilarities have been observed to influence engagement level with brands. Similarly, the
findings refute the position expressed by McCracken‘s (1988) that gender identity influences
consumer brand perceptions and builds congruency between their gendered self-images and the
product‘s or brand‘s image. In addition, the findings of this study contradict the view expressed by
Viktor and Viktoria (2018) that opined that significant di f f er ence s e xi st between older and
younger users of social media on the way they engage with brands.

CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS

This study investigated perceived social media characteristics and consumer brand engagement.
Results of the data analysis show that all the five characteristics of social media are related to one
another and consumer brand engagement. In term of prediction only openness and Conversationality
predicted consumer brand engagement. All the five characteristics of social media, namely,
participation, openness, connectedness, community/commonality, and conversationality jointly
predicted consumer brand engagement. The results also indicate that both gender and age do not
predict consumer brand engagement. The use of social media to foster brand engagement has
become noticeable in today‘s global economic and social environment, and has attracted substantial
research and managerial attention. Social media play a major role in customer engagement, thus,
virtual communication/interaction generated through SNSs has become a valuable tool to businesses
of all forms and sizes. In particular, social media platforms have become extremely popular among
businesses around the globe, because, they simplify consumer engagement, increase satisfaction, and
upsurge customer loyalty. Given the significance of social media to numerous stakeholders and the
copious consequences related to its use, social media has attracted the attention of business
practitioners and academics from various fields.
Social media has become widespread, as a way of communicating, interacting and socializing, and
thus, businesses and students are spending a considerable part of their time on social media.
According to Akakandelwa and Walubita (2018), youth particularly students are considered the
largest users of social media platform, and they account for large audience on social media (Tuten &
Solomon, 2014). According to Sharma and Shukla (2016), young people engage in social media
because they are vibrant, information technology savvy and develop more urge to regularly get in
touch with friends, family and acquaintances more than the adults clusters, who mostly stay in touch
occasionally (Ajayi, 1995), based on realization to develop their identity (Arnett, 2007). For
students, academic life can be stressful (Tandoc, Ferrucci & Duffy, 2015), so social media usage
helps to decrease tension. While social media has its positive benefits, many highlights that SNSs
have a number negative features, mostly the tendency of its overuse to an addiction. Others claimed
it contributes to inattentiveness, strain, and suspicion. Also, on many occasions, social media may be
a channel for misleading information and falsehoods.
Promoting brands v i a s o c i a l m e d i a is very crucial in instituting strong connection with
consumers for long-term b usi ness success a n d s u s t a i n a b i l i t y . Consequently, improving
advertising content that accomplishes superior reach and engagement on social media has become a
vital issue for marketing activities. As a result, a s s e s s i n g t h e d e g r e e o f customer
experiences with brands and engagement behaviors through social media exemplifies the most
significant tenacity for marketing specialists and marketing companies (Mahmoud, Lucia, &
Francisco, 2019).
Through social media, consumers freely demonstrate their brand choice which may equally provoke
positive or negative word of mouth communication that convey information that generates sense of

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Perceived characteristics of social media platforms and consumer brand engagement in the automobile industry

bad or good judgment about product, services, brand and corporate image of the organization.
Similarly, under a complex choice decision, customers may rely on information or post disseminated
via social media platforms to seek further information from friends and acquaintances they consider
trustworthy to guide their choice decision (The Social Side of the Internet, 2011). To generate
engagement and user participation, companies need to make S N S s content as enjoyable,
pleasurable, compelling, and trustworthy as possible, while bearing in mind the changing profiles
of followers. One notable approach is to categorize user engagement metrics into degrees that denote
comparable actions, expressions, or influences. However, not all user engagement benchmarks have
the same impact, and different metrics stipulate diverse types of user engagement as well as
manifestation (Noguti, 2016). Consequently, a standardized tactic to classify users will be of
significant benefit to both companies and users of social media platforms.
This study offers two important managerial contributions. The study demonstrates that perceived
social media characteristics consisting of participation, openness, coversationality,
community/commonality, and connectedness are positively connected to and impact consumer brand
engagement. Thus, improvement along the five dimensions is mostly significant for marketers who
intend to use their social media presence to promote their brand and products. Consequently, by
having a better understanding of the role of consumer engagement, businesses can apply this
knowledge to make their social media communities more impactful and effective. According to the
study findings, both gender and age are not significantly related to consumer brand engagement.
Notwithstanding, marketers should take note of gender and age peculiarity when designing social
media advertising by paying attention to the level of entertainment and interactivity designs that are
based on user‘s gender and age dissimilarities and on that basis, construct effective social media
toolkits that will appeal to diverse gender and age clusters to proactively engage them through
appropriate content and expressive conversations.
LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY AND SUGGESTION FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Using rigorous methodological research design, this study contributes significantly to knowledge and
business practice, nonetheless, it is not without its limitations, which could be addressed by future
researchers. This study focused on postgraduate students enrolled for Master of Science Degree in the
Department of Business Administration, University of Lagos. It is suggested that future research
should incorporate larger samples of varying students across the university. Similarly, data were
collected on a specific social network (Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram) which are the most
popular social media platforms. Thus, future researchers desirable to test the proposed model
should integrate other social m e d i a networks. Likewise, it might be stimulating if future
researchers focus on the receiver context, for instance, engagement might vary between circumstances
in which people use social media platforms, and it may also differ across form of device used to
access these platforms. Based on the aforementioned, two potential relevant areas of future research
can be an inquiry on the degree to which social media is adopted by students in collaborative learning,
and also to investigate perception of students of tertiary institutions of social media such as blogs and
YouTube as a teaching platforms, with special reference to various mode of studying such as Zoom,
Google classroom etc. that gained popularity in view of Covid-19 pandemic that has made physical
interaction with students difficult.

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