User engagement in social media – an explorative study of Swedish fashion brands

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to add to the literature by exploring how curvilinear manifestations of user engagement can be explained in the setting of fashion-oriented social media. Design/methodology/approach – This study analyses how ten Swedish fashion brands have been integrated in expressions of user engagement in social media. In total, a material of 11,173 user-generated contents from different types of social media applications over a period of 12 weeks was collected and analysed. Findings – The results of this paper show that user engagement fluctuates considerably over time in social media. It also shows that the degree of engagement varies between different forms of social media applications. Originality/value – This study contributes to the literature on fashion marketing and user engagement by adding empirical support for the suggestion that expressions of engagement found in social media are curvilinear in their nature. It also concludes that highly involved and engaged users, instead of being brand activists, tend to be variety seekers in the studied setting that when taken together represents an emerging managerial challenge for the fashion industry and particularly fashion firms.