An Integrative Typology Of Relational Benefits And Costs In Social Media Brand Pages

The paper focuses on consumer-brand relationships in the social media environment, and suggests a typology of the benefits & costs consumers perceive when interacting with social media brand fan pages. Based on a series of focus groups and with the use of an online questionnaire, qualitative and quantitative data were collected from four focus groups and from 1,792 consumers-users of popular brand fan pages on both Facebook and Twitter. Study results indicate that consumers-users of brand fan pages on Facebook and Twitter, perceive social, functional, enjoyment, special treatment, self enhancement, advice, and status benefits. Privacy concern, information overload, and ad irritation are consumers’ perceived costs. As the same seven factors of relational benefits and three factors of relational costs have been confirmed across all Facebook and Twitter brand fan pages, it can be argued that the structure and dimensions of relational benefits and costs are cross-medium and brand invariant, and are perceived in the same way by Facebook and Twitter users. Considering the rapid development of social media and their penetration in business marketing actions, this study contributes to the digital marketing literature by providing a better understanding of relational benefits, relational costs and consumer-brand relationships in a social media context.