ABSTRACT
Social media have become mainstream in today’s global economic and social environment and, therefore, they have attracted significant research and managerial attention. They play a significant role in customer engagement and communication while becoming an invaluable tool to businesses of all sizes. Social media have become enormously popular among businesses around the world because they facilitate customer engagement, enhance satisfaction, and increase customer loyalty. They provide a platform where customers engage in various forms of behaviors and interactions with other customers. Thus, customers might be active (e.g. evaluating service performance, posting comments and material, or sharing others’ comments and material) or passive consumers of social media content (e.g. viewing other customers’ evaluations, viewing comments and material, or observing conversations of others). Active customer engagement may be considered social behavior because it involves social interactions, whereas passive engagement as para-social behavior because it is one-sided. The purpose of this chapter is to review the related literature on customer engagement in social media, identify key elements and forms of customer engagement, and propose a conceptual framework that explains how and when customers are engaged in social media. Specifically, the main antecedents (extrinsic and intrinsic factors) and outcomes (relational and value outcomes) of customer engagement are presented along with the types of engagement (active and passive) in social media The proposed framework provides future research directions and managerial implications.
