The use of Social Networking Sites to Create Customer Knowledge

Over the last few years Social Networking Sites (SNS) have emerged as tools where people can share knowledge, which implies that SNS can be considered as new sources for intellectual capital. Considering the emergence of specific profiles of businesses or brands at SNS, called brand pages, this research focuses on the brand knowledge that customers develop in the context of SNS and its effect on brand equity. Then, the aim of this paper is to identify the role played by brand knowledge in the process of creating brand equity, as a driver of customer equity and intellectual capital. We suggest that the process of learning from SNS can be influenced by the gratifications that customers and users of SNS perceive. Then, five types of gratifications (purposive, self-discovery, interpersonal connectivity, social enhancement and entertainment) are recognized as learning facilitators that enhance customer knowledge about the brand or brand knowledge. Moreover, brand knowledge has been traditionally recognized as a source or dimension of customer based brand equity and, by extension, can enhance customer equity and intellectual capital. Our study analyses these effects through an empirical investigation of 295 users of SNS and the methodology involves the construction and analysis of a structural equation model. The results confirm the need of using SNS as an intellectual capital tool and provide useful information for firms, including what types of gratifications are more relevant to provide users through the use of SNS.