An Exploratory Study of the Impact of Social Media Strategies on Building Brand Equity

Abstract

Social media platforms can be used by both consumers and brands to improve and enhance two-way communication within a digital environment (Wilson 2016). Today, these platforms are used by consumers to express their opinions and beliefs or experiences with brands. Brand managers do not utilize social media strategies as effectively and efficiently as they could in order to build brand equity (Tsimonis & Dimitriadis, 2013). This may be due to a lack of understanding of how social media strategies can be successfully implemented to build brand equity amongst consumers (Fournier & Avery, 2011). Following an interpretivist investigation paradigm, with a qualitative approach, using an exploratory design the researcher aimed to explore how social media strategies can be an asset to build brand equity. The study focused Quick Service Restaurant consumers who engage with the Nando’s social media strategies. Nando’s has been selected as a brand to research in this study as it implements successful integrated social media strategies to build brand equity. The researcher used availability sampling and snowball sampling to gather data from an online questionnaire that was posted on Facebook to understand the online behavior of South African consumers aged 25-35 years. The researcher’s key findings were that the social media strategies of Nando’s are not valued as much by the participants because they do not have a behavioral attachment to the posts, images or videos. Most of the participants do not feel that Nando’s are special to them but do acknowledge the fact that Nando’s is a South African grown brand and is therefore more than just a product. The participants can associate with other users of the brand because they relate to where they live, their personality style and sense of humor as well as their love for food.