Research pick: Cross-cultural social media effects - "Developing brand relationships through social media communication: a cross-cultural comparison"

The effect of different cultural characteristics can affect the relationships consumers using social media have with different brands, according to research published in the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing.

Marsela Thanasi-Boçe and Omar Ali of the American University of the Middle East in Kuwait Ayse Begum Ersoy of Cape Breton University in Nova Scotia, Canada, have examined the role social media plays in the differences in the relationships between consumers and brands. The team used Hofstede’s cultural dimensions theory to help them understand social media data gathered from users in Albania and Turkey through online surveys. They used statistical analysis to dig deep into the data and compare the characteristics of communication on social media between these two regions.

The team found a positive correlation between social media communications and the strength of consumer-brand relationships. Indeed, the more a user is engaged in social media activity, the stronger is their relationship with a given brand. However, the findings are more nuanced than that. The researchers found that the effect was less pronounced in the culture with the stronger collectivist tendency. This, they suggest, challenges the conventional wisdom with regard to cultural influences on social media behaviour.

It is worth noting, that other variables such as gender and age perhaps paradoxically had little impact on brand relationship quality. This suggests that these relationships transcend demographic boundaries, emphasizing what we might consider their universality.

The findings offer new insights for marketing, In recognising cultural similarities and differences in how consumers respond to social media communications, the work highlights possible new opportunities for businesses to tailor their social media marketing strategies to align with particular cultural characteristics, preferences, and behaviour patterns rather than applying general principles in a region where the impact may be intrinsically weaker.

The work points to a need for companies to craft more effective and culturally sensitive strategies to connect with putative consumers worldwide depending on local culture. Future work will, of course, need to extend the findings from these two areas to a wider base to help support the hypothesis and allow more general conclusions to be drawn about brand relationships and how social media across different cultures influences them.

Thanasi-Boçe, M., Ali, O. and Ersoy, A.B. (2023) ‘Developing brand relationships through social media communication: a cross-cultural comparison’, Int. J. Electronic Marketing and Retailing, Vol. 14, No. 4, pp.351–370.