Page 1 of 6
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at https://pen2print.org/index.php/jsmap/
ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 04 Issue 12
December 2018
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 16
The Impact of Engagement with Brands in Social
Media Marketing through Facebook Fan Pages on
the Brand Equity for Licensed Domestic
Commercial Banks in Sri Lanka
Balachandran Sarangan
Lecturer (Probationary), Trincomalee Campus, Eastern University, Sri Lanka
Abstract:
Emergence of social media platforms have
fundamentally altered the marketing landscape &
become as a powerful networking force connecting
people from every corner of the world. Despite the
exponential growth in social media, there is limited
research on its potential effect on brand equity in the
Sri Lankan context. This study makes an important
contribution to fill the existing gap on consumers’
engagement with brands in social media marketing
through Facebook fan pages & the effects of that on
brand equity with special reference to the licensed
domestic commercial banks in Sri Lanka. This study
conducted based on quantitative method and the data
were collected through on-line questionnaire. This
study considered the total population group of the
Facebook uses who have liked the Facebook fan
pages of licensed domestic commercial banks in Sri
Lanka & convenience sampling technique has been
utilized. As a result, correlation analysis explores a
positively significant linear relationship between
engagement with brands in social media marketing
through Facebook fan pages & brand equity created
for licensed domestic commercial banks in Sri
Lanka. The regression analysis indicates that the
engagement with brands in social media marketing
through Facebook fan page is useful to explain the
variation in brand equity created for the licensed
domestic commercial banks in Sri Lanka.
Keywords
Engagement with brands in social media
marketing, brand equity, Facebook fan pages,
Licensed domestic commercial banks in Sri Lanka.
1. Introduction
Brands are everywhere and their importance to
marketing success is indisputable (Norback, 2005).
Despite of nature of the business; brand
communications are important as it enhances the
brand equity which leads to the higher customer
preference and purchase intention.
To build strong brand equity, consumers should
perceive significant differences between brands in
the same product or service category. The process of
building brand equity begins with increasing the
consumers’ awareness of the brand and consequently
creating brand associations in their memories (Aaker,
1991; Yoo & Donthu, 2001). This involves designing
of marketing messages and supporting marketing
programs that capitalize on a well-convinced brand
positioning. Marketing messages can be designed
and delivered through both traditional media such as
television, radio, newspapers and on-line media such
as internet and social media.
The Internet revolution has transformed the way
of communication, information acquisition, and way
of conducting the business. It has provided ample
space for business organizations to maintain a
successful, long lasting and value added relationship
with their customers. The latest trend is every
business is compelled to provide a dynamic presence
on every E-media platforms (Forbes, 2013). While
traditional media allows for vertical flow of content
from powerful conglomerates to isolated consumers,
social media has allowed information to flow
horizontally between consumers (Rosen, 2006).
Nowadays social networking competes with
traditional media for the share of consumption and
attention, consumer’s time and engagement
(Armelini & Villanueva, 2011). Presently, among
traditional sources of communication, social media
have been established as mass phenomena with a
wide demographic appeal (Kaplan & Haenlein,
2010). One of the reasons for such rapid popularity
of social media among companies is the viral
dissemination of information via the internet.
Additionally, the social media provide opportunities
for internet users to create and share content (Kaplan
& Haenlein, 2010).
Page 2 of 6
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at https://pen2print.org/index.php/jsmap/
ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 04 Issue 12
December 2018
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 17
Increased competition in the financial market has
forced banks to review their marketing
communication strategies with the view of enhancing
the relevance, promoting dialogue and building long
term relationships with customers through brand
equity. As per the central bank of Sri Lanka, 2017,
there are 25 licensed commercial banks operates in
Sri Lanka and almost all the banks are engaged in the
social media marketing through Facebook. The
objective of this research study is to addressing the
modern changes in marketing communication in
order to increase the knowledge of the relationship
between engagement with bands in social media
marketing through Facebook fan pages and using it
for enhancement of the brand equity with special
reference to the licensed domestic commercial banks
in Sri Lanka.
2. Problem Statement
Six out of 10 marketers surveyed by “Forrester
Research” stated that they would increase their
budget for interactive marketing by shifting away
from traditional advertising (Forrester Research,
2010). Social networking sites such as Facebook,
Twitter, and Google+ are low-cost tools that can
promote the creation of social connections by
providing a convenient platform (Bargh & McKenna,
2004). Social media marketing is a growing trend
and there could be significant advantages for the
early movers who take advantage of this.
As per “Internet World Stats, 2017”, most of these
people in Sri Lanka are accessing internet to use the
social medias. Facebook is the most preferred social
media platform, out of all the people who use
internet 71% socialize through Facebook (Smith &
Anderson, 2018). The average social media user
spends 2 hours and 25 minutes per day using social
media (Mander, 2015). In social medias, Facebook
continues to dominate the global social media
landscape with about 1.366 billion active users
followed by YouTube (Mander, 2015). According to
the internet world stats (2017) the Facebook users in
Sri Lanka is about 4.2 million which is 63.5% of the
total internet users in Sri Lanka. Having said that
number of users in social networking sites like
Facebook are growing rapidly in Sri Lanka and this
presents with a great chance to improve brand equity.
Due to the rise of the social media, it is seen that
the traditional role of the banks is changing. In Sri
Lanka, presently all most all the banks are engaged
in social media marketing through Facebook fan
pages. But there is a question, whether they all have
known the importance and the use of social media to
build unique and strong brand equity. This study is
trying to show to what extent social media marketing
through Facebook fan pages affects the brand equity
in the context of licensed domestic commercial
banks in Sri Lanka.
2.1. Research Objectives
• To evaluate the impact of engagement with
brands in social media marketing through Facebook
fan pages on the creation of brand equity for licensed
domestic commercial banks in Sri Lanka.
• To identify the impact of involvement in
engagement with brands in social media marketing
through Facebook fan pages on the creation of brand
equity for licensed domestic commercial banks in Sri
Lanka.
• To identify the impact of interaction in
engagement with brands in social media marketing
through Facebook fan pages on the creation of brand
equity for licensed domestic commercial banks in Sri
Lanka.
• To identify the impact of intimacy in
engagement with brands in social media marketing
through Facebook fan pages on the creation of brand
equity for licensed domestic commercial banks in Sri
Lanka.
• To identify the impact of influence in
engagement with brands social media marketing
through Facebook fan pages on the creation of brand
equity for licensed domestic commercial banks in Sri
Lanka.
3. Literature Review
Aaker (1991, p. 109) defines brand equity as:
“The value consumer associates with a brand, as
reflected in the dimensions of brand awareness,
brand association, perceived quality, brand loyalty
and other proprietary brand assets.” Aaker (1996)
conceptualized brand equity as a set of five assets:
brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty
and brand association. Brand awareness is an
important component of also all brand equity models
(Aaker, 1991), it deals with the strength a brand’s
presence has in consumer’s mind. But, some
researchers have divided brand equity into four
dimensions, consisting brand loyalty, brand
awareness, brand association and perceived quality
(Aaker & Joachimsthaler, 2000).
Social media is the usage of web-based and
mobile technologies to create, share and consume
information and knowledge without any
geographical, social, political or demographical
Page 3 of 6
Journal for Studies in Management and Planning
Available at https://pen2print.org/index.php/jsmap/
ISSN: 2395-0463
Volume 04 Issue 12
December 2018
Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 18
boundaries through public interaction in a
participatory and collaborative way. Kaplan and
Haenlein (2010) indicate the term social media as the
use of web-based and mobile technologies to turn
communication into an interactive dialogue.
According to Weber (2009) social media
marketing means a completely new way of
communicating with target people within a digital
the environment. However, the growth of social
media has impacted the way organizations
communicate. With the emergence of web 2.0, the
internet provides a set of tools that allow people to
build social and business connections, share
information and collaborate on projects online.
Haven (2007) defines engagement in social media
marketing as the level of involvement, interaction,
intimacy and influence an individual has with a
specific brand over a period of time. As define by
Haven (2007) engagement goes beyond reach and
frequency to measure people’s real feelings about
brands. It starts with their own brand relationship and
continues as they extend that relationship to other
customers. As a customer’s participation with a
brand deepens from site use and purchases
(involvement and interaction) to affinity and
championing (intimacy and influence), measuring
and acting on engagement becomes more critical to
understanding customers’ intentions.
4. Methodology
4.1. Conceptual Framework
According to a study conducted by
Yazdanparast, Joseph, and Muniz (2016), brand- based social media marketing is essential in
impacting consumers’ attitudes toward brands.
Stojanovic, Andreu, and Curras-Perez (2018)
confirmed a positive effect of the intensity of social
media use on brand awareness. Godey et al. (2016)
also concluded that social media marketing effects
have a significant positive effect on brand equity of
luxury brands.
Sarangan and Ragel (2014), measured the
engagement with social media marketing by the
Haven’s (2007) model which includes involvement,
interaction, intimacy, and influence in their study.
They found a positive liner relationship with social
media marketing and brand awareness for Mobitel
Sri Lanka (Sarangan & Ragel, 2014).Based on the
previous studies, two variables were conceptualized
as follows based on the Haven’s (2007) engagement
with brands in social media model and Aker’s (1996)
brand equity model:
Figure: 1 : Conceptual Framework
4.2. Research Design
This study conducted based on the quantitative
research method. Primary data were collected to
address both dependent and independent variables
based on an on-line survey utilizing a structured
questionnaire in a web page format which was posted
in the “wall” of Facebook fan pages of licensed
domestic commercial banks in Sri Lanka.
4.3. Population and Sampling
The population of this study is the Facebook users
who have liked fan pages of licensed domestic
commercial banks in Sri Lanka. The convenience
sampling method has been deployed in this study.
Convenience sampling is a non-probability sampling
technique where subjects are selected because of
their convenient accessibility and proximity to the
researcher.
4.4. Methods of Measurement
In this study, measurement was carried out by
Likert scale. All variables of the study were
measured by five-point Likert scale in the web page
questionnaire. The scales of measurement for the
research information as strongly disagree, disagree,
moderately agree, and strongly agree respectively.
4.5. Data Analysis
Bivariate analysis used to measure the
magnitude and direction of the relationship between
engagement with brands in social media marketing
through Facebook fan pages and brand equity of
licensed domestic commercial banks in Sri Lanka.
The decision would be taken based on the amount of
correlation coefficient (R) and its significance level.
The regression analysis has been used to
determine how 1 unit of engagement with brands in
social media marketing through Facebook fan pages
result in the creation of brand equity for licensed
domestic commercial banks in Sri Lanka.
5. Results and Discussion
5.1. Correlation Analysis
The coefficient of correlation between
engagement with brands in social media marketing
through Facebook fan pages and the brand equity
Engagement with
Brands in Social
Media Marketing
Brand
Equity
