In their research, Zhang et al. (2017) address the significance of customer engagement with company social networks and its influence on stickiness. With the development of social media that has already changed the way of communication between people to the fullest extent, the majority of large companies have created their own websites on the basis of social network sites for direct interaction with customers. The effectiveness of this strategy is determined by social media’s function “to turn customers’ offline social networks into online ones,” timeliness, and ability to spread information instantly (Zhang et al., 2017, p. 229).
However, the role of consumers has changed as well as they have become information co-creators instead of being passive information “receivers.” In addition, as social network platforms are currently independent and open and a large number of company social networks have already existed, consumers frequently check several websites simultaneously to compare, products and services or follow more than one enterprise website. That is why the concept of stickiness start to attract entrepreneurs’ attention.
Zhang et al. (2017) define their research problem as a lack of reliable studies dedicated to the impact of customer engagement. The problem, purpose, and method of the study specified at the beginning of the paper. In general, few previous researches empirically analyze the importance of customer engagement as a new relationship marketing paradigm for the establishment of a good relationship between customers and company social networks (Zhang et al., 2017). That is why, the purpose of the paper is “to build a model about the influence of customer engagement on customer value creation and stickiness of websites” (Zhang et al., 2017, p. 230). The collection of data from Sina’s enterprise microblog users with its subsequent analysis was used as the method of this research.
As social media is constantly developing and it has substantially changed the way of people’s communication, company social networks may be currently regarded as highly significant means for any company’s socialized marketing that form new challenges for customer attraction (Zhang et al., 2017). In general, according to threcentnt market research, “companies marketing strategies that included social networks increased sales by 24% over strategies that did not include the social-media platform” (Zhang et al., 2017, p. 230).
Moreover, as the consumers’ role has considerably changed and they have started to influence the company’s growth through social media, their engagement has become highly valuable. In their paper, Zhang et al. (2017) investigate the importance of customer engagement with company social networks and its impact on stickiness. As a matter of fact, engaged customers positively contribute to the generation of content, co-create customer value and experience, and refer brands, services, and products to other customers (Zhang et al., 2017). That is why, in the context of high compatibility in the present day, companies undertake all efforts to improve customer stickiness.
The research problem identified by Zhang et al. (2017) is a lack of knowledge related to the ability of customer engagement to influence stickiness. Existing academic researches dedicated to customer engagement mostly focus on the concept’s definition and the scale’s development. The study aims to add new information to the data already available and build a specific model related to the impact of customer engagement on the stickiness of websites and customer value creation (Zhang et al., 2017). The method that was applied for the research is the analysis of data collected from questionnaires of Sina’s enterprise microblog users. The description of the study’s purpose, problem, and method may be found at the beginning of the article.
Reference
Zhang, M., Guo, L., Hu, M., & Liu, W. (2017). Influence of customer engagement with company social networks on stickiness: Mediating effect of customer value creation. International Journal of Information Management, 37(3), 229-240. Web.