Digital content marketing and consumer brand engagement on social media- do influencers’ brand content moderate the relationship?

Abstract

Digital content marketing (DCM) has been found to be effective in engaging consumers with brands, particularly on social media. Complementing DCM pursuits with social media influencers’ (SMIs) brand content can further enhance the ameliorating results. This study aimed to empirically assess DCM’s relationship with consumer brand engagement on social media and how SMI’s brand content moderates this relationship. Through a quantitative approach, the empirical data was purposefully collected from 1022 respondents via a web-based survey questionnaire. The findings indicate that DCM campaigns with information, entertainment, commercial and emotional focus have positive relationships with consumer brand engagement, except when DCM campaigns have negative emotional elements. Moreover, the brand content of SMIs significantly moderates the relationship between DCM elements and brand engagement. However, DCM campaigns with negative emotional elements have a negative relationship on brand engagement when SMI is a moderator. This study is significant as it empirically tests the interplay among DCM, SMIs, and brand engagement on social media, contributing to the literature on this topic.