Social media services branding: The use of corporate brand names

Companies are increasingly searching for ways to better engage consumers through social media. In this paper, we explore the impact of using different levels of brand names (corporate vs. product) in social media posts on customer engagement and purchase intentions for services. Building on services branding and brand self-identity literature, we argue that the use of corporate brand names in a services context will increase message likes and purchase intention and that corporate customer brand identification drives these effects. We test this assertion with both field and experimental studies. A field study, using actual services' Facebook brand posts, provides support for this hypothesis, finding that the use of corporate brand names increases message likes while the use of product brand names reduces them. Four follow-up experiments replicate these results, identify boundary conditions, and provide process evidence that the effect is mediated by customer brand identification. Implications are discussed.