Enhancing consumer-brand relationships on restaurant Facebook fan pages: Maximizing consumer benefits and increasing active participation

Facebook has been widely recognized as a popular contemporary trend in marketing. Using a Facebook fan page can help a firm successfully establish and maintain positive consumer-brand relationships by offering special benefits to members who "like" the fan page on their Facebook accounts. The purpose of this study was to determine the correlation between four benefit components (functional benefits, social-psychological benefits, hedonic benefits, and monetary benefits) obtained by fan page members and members' community participation, brand trust, and brand commitment. The results of data analysis revealed that fan page members are more likely to visit restaurant Facebook fan pages when they obtain social-psychological and hedonic benefits from their interactions on the pages. Because members can develop strong trust and commitment toward restaurant brands through active participation on Facebook fan pages, this study provides a practical foundation for future research investigating Facebook as a marketing tool and suggests brand management strategies for use in online communities. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.