2025

Tyrväinen, Olli; Karjaluoto, Heikki; Karjala, Pinja

This chapter aims to evaluate the effects of user-generated social media content quality and firm-generated social media content quality, and social media attachment to the retail customer experience and its loyalty outcomes. Using two surveys (N = 2,156 and N = 2,565), an experiment (N = 659), and in-depth consumer interviews (N = 17), we show how a retailer’s participation in consumers’ social media discussions affects consumer responses and loyalty outcomes. The results indicate that user-generated content quality has a positive effect on customers’ cognitive response. Firm-generated content decreases the harmful effect of negative user-generated content on loyalty intentions. In addition, social media attachment strengthens the impact of emotional responses on loyalty intentions (e.g., purchase intention and word of mouth). Moreover, the results indicate that consumers’ content preferences are linked with the type of product. Rational decision-making requires informative support, whereas emotional content is linked with impulse-purchasing behavior. Thus, this study provides implications for more effective social media marketing.