Customers’ motivation to engage with luxury brands on social media

Customers engaging with brands on social media is critical to social media managers; however, there is still a lack of in-depth studies on the drivers of consumers’ engagement with luxury brands. Drawing on 25 semi-structured interviews with customers following luxury brands in social media, this study explores what motivates customers to engage with luxury brands on social media. This research develops a theoretical framework for the motivations of customers’ cognitive, emotional and behavioral engagement with luxury brands. The study identifies 13 motivations grouped into six macro-dimensions: perceived content relevancy (brand news, post quality, and celebrity endorsement), brand-customer relationship (brand love, and brand ethereality), hedonic (entertainment), aesthetic (design appeal), socio-psychological (actual self-congruency, status signaling, and enhance and maintain face), brand equity (perceived brand quality), and technology factors (ease of use and convenience). This study helps marketing managers of luxury brands to understand how they can improve engagement with their customers.