‘Your comments boost my value!’ – the mediator role of emotional brand attachment between brand equity and social media engagement

The COVID-19 pandemic has required new marketing strategies for leveraging brand equity among Higher Education Institutions. Previous research has uncovered the impact of electronic word of mouth in the Higher Education Institutions’ service industry, so this research extends our knowledge of the effects of electronic word of mouth on Higher Education Institutions’ brand equity and, additionally, on social media engagement. A quantitative approach was adopted, using questionnaires among Higher Education Institutions’ students and alumni. The results, obtained through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), provide evidence of the contribution of the positive valence of electronic word of mouth to brand equity, emotional brand attachment, and social media engagement. The findings suggest customers are becoming more susceptible to positive electronic word of mouth. The research extends current knowledge by demonstrating the relevance of positive valence to electronic word of mouth in Higher Education.