Building a tribe on Instagram: How User-generated and Firm-created Content can drive brand evangelism and fidelity

ABSTRACT

The social media revolution has significantly transformed marketing plans and practices in the business world. Firm-Created Content (FCC) and User-Generated Content (UGC) serve as critical social media communication tools for brands to connect and build relationships with customers. This study investigates the influence of FCC and UGC on affective commitment, brand evangelism, and fidelity. Drawing on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) model, this study aims to explore the impact of FCC and UGC on affective commitment, which, in turn, mediates the relationships between these social media communication tools (FCC and UGC), brand evangelism and fidelity. The research, focusing on a coffee-shop chain’s FCC and UGC on Instagram, utilizing structural equation modeling to analyze data from a sample of 341 Instagram users in the USA who are Starbucks customers. The findings reveal that FCC and UGC are positively and significantly related to brand evangelism and fidelity. Furthermore, the results suggest that affective commitment mediates the relationship between FCC, UGC, brand evangelism and fidelity, supporting the hypotheses concerning the indirect relationships between social media communication tools, brand evangelism and fidelity.

RELEVANCE OF THE STUDY

This study contributes to the literature by examining the underlying mechanism through which FCC and UGC promote brand evangelism and fidelity within the context of the coffee shop industry and on Instagram. The study offers a valuable contribution to the tourism marketing literature by shedding light on the role of UGC and FCC as social media communication tools for coffee brands. These tools can assist coffee marketers in developing varied marketing strategies through social network sites, particularly Instagram, to attract customers effectively, encourage positive engagement, and motivate them to contribute to building an interactive and long-term brand identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media marketing
• User-generated content (UGC)
• Firm-created content (FCC)
• brand evangelism
• brand fidelity
• Instagram
• Starbucks

View correction statement:

Correction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (10.1080/13527266.2024.2347799).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Blend Ibrahim

Blend Ibrahim is an Assistant Professor of Marketing and Tourism at the at the Faculty of Business Administration, Istanbul Ticaret University. He teaches or has taught in Marketing, Tourism Management, Branding, and Consumer Behavior at BSc, MSc levels. He was awarded his MSC degree in Business Management from Girne American University in 2016 and his Ph.D. degree in Business Management (Marketing) from Girne American University in 2019. His current research interests include Digital marketing, Social media marketing, Corporate social responsibility, Consumer behavior, Sustainable Tourism.

Joe Hazzam

Joe Hazzam is a Senior Lecturer in Digital Marketing at Staffordshire University, United Kingdom, where he acts as the course leader of the BSc(Hons) Digital and social Media Marketing. He has published in journals such as Journal of Strategic Marketing, Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice and Computers and Education among others. His research interests include digital marketing capabilities, social media marketing, and online customer engagement.

Sikandar Ali Qalati

Sikandar Ali Qalati is a motivated Associate Professor and Vice Director in the School of Finance & Economics at Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China. He did his Ph.D. in Management Science and Engineering from Jiangsu University, China. He has excellent educational credentials and hands-on experience in activities/event management, education, and research. He is skilled at performing quality control and managing several projects while meeting deadlines under pressure. Creates, develops, and fine-tunes various experimental study designs. Demonstrate excellent problem-solving skills with a keen eye for details; collaborate with faculty and students across different departments to conduct interdisciplinary research. Superb facilitator thrives in making maximum use of managerial, interpersonal, communication, presentation, and persuasive abilities to conduct training programs and organize high-end professional courses.

Ahmad Aljarah

Ahmad Aljarah holds a Ph.D. in Business Management and has pursued additional studies in corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and social media marketing. He currently serves as an associate professor of marketing at Bahçeşehir Cyprus University and boasts over six years of experience teaching various marketing courses, including Consumer Behavior, Marketing Strategy, Advanced Consumer Behavior, Brand Management, Principles of Marketing, and more. Dr. Aljarah has authored or co-authored more than 20 publications in renowned international journals such as The Service Industries Journal, Current Issues in Tourism, and the Journal of Sustainable Tourism. He is proficient in several statistical and research methods, including experimental design, Structural Equation Modeling (both CB-SEM and PLS-SEM), Meta-Analysis, Meta-Analysis Structural Equation Modeling, and Intellectual Structure Analysis using tools like Vosviewer and Gephi. Currently, Dr. Aljarah is actively engaged in multiple research projects covering diverse topics, including the impact of synthetic advertising, ads generated or edited by artificial intelligence on consumer behavior, Augmented Reality and consumer experiences, virtual gift donations on social media platforms, ads framing, and more.

Paul Dobson

Paul Dobson is a Senior Lecturer in Digital and Strategic Marketing, this includes presenting at various Universities, Institutes, Associations and internationally on Digital Marketing, such as the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), Chamber of Commerce and guest lectures in Malaysia. Paul has written chapters in books on Digital Marketing and he also presents masterclasses on Digital Marketing for SMEs and Charities. His research interests include digital marketing capabilities, and digital marketing for SMEs and Social Enterprises.