Battle of Influence: Analysing the Impact of Brand-Directed and Influencer-Directed Social Media Marketing on Customer Engagement and Purchase Behaviour

Firms regularly call on multiple social media communication tactics (e.g. influencers, user-generated content and brand messages) to interact with their customers. Drawing on both parasocial relationship and social identity theories, we investigate the relative effectiveness of brand-directed versus influencer-directed social media marketing in stimulating both customer engagement and purchase behaviour. First, we use a survey research design to collect data on customers' intention to engage with the brand and purchase when exposed to brand-directed and influencer-directed social media marketing. Second, we collect data from a field experiment on a social media platform that captures customer engagement and brand sales at aggregate levels attributed to brand-directed and influencer-directed social media marketing. Consistently across both studies, we find that brand-directed and influencer-directed social media marketing positively impact customer engagement and customer purchase behaviour. Further evidenced across both studies, we find brand-directed social media marketing is more effective than influencer-directed social media marketing in fostering customer engagement, whereas influencer-directed social media marketing is more effective in driving customer purchases. We also find that female customers are more impacted by influencer-directed social media marketing on both dimensions than brand-directed social media marketing. The study provides a strategic direction for brands to optimally allocate their limited digital marketing budget between brand-directed and influencer-directed social media marketing based on their marketing objectives central to customer behaviour - either enhancing longer-term customer relationship building via engagement or generating shorter-term sales.