Impact of firm-created and user-generated social media communication on brand associations

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study the impact of firm-created and usergenerated social media communication on brand association through Facebook. This study evaluated 262 data sets that were generated through a standardized online survey to investigate the impact of firm-created and user-generated social media brand communication on brand associations, across 3 brands within the mobile network service providers in Sri Lanka. The study was applied a structural equation modeling technique to investigate the effects of social media communication on brand association. The results of the empirical studies showed that both firm-created and user-generated social media brand communication influence brand associations. This study is pioneering in that it exposes the effects of two different types of social media communication such as firm-created and user-generated social media brand communication on brand association, this study of relevance for both marketers and scholars in the era of social media. Additionally, this included the recommendations for practitioners, strategies to create effective social media brand communication.