Research On Social Media Content Marketing:A Mechanism For Global Brands' Enhancement Of Brand Loyalty

Diversified new media is developing rapidly due to information technology,while the traditional media is losing the impact on consumers.Powerful Internet broadband,can-be-skipped digital advertising,the popularity of smart phones,etc.,which have made marketing practitioners are paying more attention to new media,especially social media.As the traditional content creation and dissemination model has converted dramatically,the content-focused social media communication strategy assists company to strengthen customer relationships and build brand reputation.With the advatange of low cost and convenience,social media content marketing has become one of the unreplacable tools for global brand overseas marketing.Facebook,Twitter,Google and other global social media platforms opened offices or set up joint venture companies in Hong Kong,hoping to obtain more international advertising business from mainland China.For global brands,how can we make the best use of social media to enhance the level of marketing communication and brand influence worldwide? This is the primary question that Chinese multinational corporations should be considering.Literatures have not confirmed the impact of social media content marketing strategies on brand loyalty,nor do they specify the mechanism of social media content marketing.Therefore,this research adopts the Use & Gratification Theory as the theoretical basis,introduces the concept of customer-brand engagement,and analyses the mechanism of how content marketing influences brand loyalty.This research uses the normative method of "theoretical research-model construction-empirical research",mainly discusses the five key issues: theoretical roots of social media content marketing,the content analysis of social media content marketing value dimensions,the mechanism of how content marketing influneces brand loyalty,conceptual model construction,and the empirical test of conceptual model.The main content of this paper are as follows:1)Analysis of the mechanism of how content marketing impact brand loyalty.Based on Use & Gratification Theory,this paper points out that content marketing needs to meet the consumers' demand for media content and provide them withmultiple value experience.In this paper,the concept of customer engagement is included,and a new theoretical framework of "Content marketing – Customer-brand engagement – Brand loyalty" is constructed,which lays up the theoretical basis of this research.2)Exploratory research on the content value dimensionality of content marketing.Based on content analysis on WeChat of the content marketing strategy of Lenovo,Huawei,HTC and Samsung,this research explores the value dimensionality of "functional information","entertaining information","social interaction","brand interaction" and "self-concept" analyses the motivations of consumers interacting with brands through the social media,and discusses the relationship between the content marketing,social media strategy ability and social currency.3)" Content marketing – Customer-brand engagement – Brand loyalty " conceptual model construction and empirical research.In this paper,the data from social media fans / followers of Lenovo and Huawei are obtained through questionnaires,and Structural Equation Modeling is used to test the concept model.The results show that the five value dimensionality of social media content marketing-functional value,entertaining value,social interaction value,brand interaction value,and self-concept value,affect brand loyalty,through the mediating effect of brand knowledge,brand trust and online engagement.The conceptual model of " Content marketing – Customer-brand engagement – Brand loyalty " is tested empirically.