The Role of Social Participation and Electronic Word-of-Mouth Advertising in Brand Equity

The development of technology has changed how businesses, organizations, and marketers interact with their consumers. With the remarkable advances in data collection technologies, there is a plethora of information on goods readily available to consumers, allowing them to employ this information on social media. Marketing and branding policies aim to use this trend to implement more effective advertising strategies. Similarly, brands also require proper strategies to gain a foothold in consumers' minds and strengthen their image. In that regard, brand equity is one of the most popular marketing concepts. Branding can influence brand equity by interacting with customers on social networks and effectively shaping the brand image through the concept of electronic word-of-mouth advertising. Accordingly, the present study examined the effect of social participation and electronic word-of-mouth advertising on brand equity pyramid variables

This is an applied research study. Data collection was conducted using the library and field research methods by administering a questionnaire. Thus, this study can be considered survey research. The face validity of the questionnaire was examined after consulting with several selected experts. A pre-test involving thirty individuals was conducted, consequently. Next, Cronbach's alpha was calculated to confirm the reliability of the administered questionnaire. The statistical population included 1,500 members of the official Telegram channel of Alborz Campus students at the University of Tehran. Using Cochran's formula, the number of statistical samples with an error value of 0.05 was equal to 306 individuals. The simple random sampling method was used to select 306 individuals.

According to the Pearson correlation test and regression performed in SPSS, the hypothesis test results showed that electronic word-of-mouth advertising had a significant effect on all parameters of the brand equity pyramid. It should be noted that many studies have focused on this issue. Our findings confirmed that positive word-of-mouth advertising could considerably influence the variables of the brand equity pyramid.

In the fifth generation of marketing, brands are witnessing a technological revolution and significant development in various social platforms, such as social networking sites, online brand/shopping sites, online consumer review sites, online discussion sites, and blogs is underway. Moreover, thanks to these advances, customers can now share experiences, perceptions, and recommendations by engaging in electronic word-of-mouth advertising on these platforms. Therefore, paying attention to social participation, especially by electronic word-of-mouth advertising as an independent factor that directly influences all indicators of brand equity, is a vital policy for sustainable organizational success.