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Top1. Introduction
Social media marketing (SMM) has changed the marketing landscape that creates an environment where marketers can capitalize on social media (SM) to co-create value with customers (Sashi et al., 2019; Huang & Rust, 2018; Elsharnouby & Mahrous, 2015). Thus, the notion of value co-creation (VC) has drawn much academic and practitioner attention (Chen et al., 2019). Social media advertising expenditures worldwide amounted to 378.16 billion U.S. dollars in 2020 (Statista, 2021). In Bangladesh, social media (SM) users are 45.00 million in January 2021 which is accounted for 27.2% of the total population (Datareportal, 2021). These numbers inspire brand marketers to communicate brand information over SM platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube to maintain mutually satisfying customer-brand relationships. On SM platforms, brand love (BL) is a sign of the customer’s brand preference which is shown by pressing the “Like” or “Heart” shape button on Facebook, Instagram. When customers love a brand on social media, they want to share its content and recommend others to buy that brand (Machado et al., 2019). Therefore, it is practical to posit brand love to be a critical driver of (VC) which strengthens the relationship between SMM and VC within the telecommunication sector.
The promising telecommunication sector in Bangladesh has been growing hurriedly over time. This sector is ranked as the fifth position in the Asian mobile market and the ninth place in the global market (GSMA, 2018). It has made a significant contribution to the economic development and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) attainment (GSMA, 2018). At present, four mobile operators are conducting business in Bangladesh namely Grameen Phone Ltd. (GP), Banglalink Digital Communications Limited, Robi Axiata Limited (Robi), and Teletalk Bangladesh Ltd. (Teletalk). Grameen Phone Ltd. is ranked as the first position in this sector having 79.037 million mobile subscribers. The mobile subscriber rate has increased radically. The total subscribers have 170.137 million at the end of 2020 which was 147.000 million at the beginning of 2018 (BTRC, 2021). There is severe competition encountered by the telecommunication sector in Bangladesh because of the homogeneous service features, the convergence of technologies, and the emergence of new digital services (GSMA, 2018). In these circumstances, telecommunication marketers can distinguish their offerings through effective SMM which will expedite the VC process which in turn generate strong overall brand equity for firms. Therefore, the timely inquiry for the telecommunication marketers to find how and to what extent social media marketing can build overall brand equity(OBE) in the telecommunication sector.
The majority of the study in Bangladesh focused on the relationship of social media with consumer behavior, purchase intention, brand awareness (Eti et al., 2021; Al Amin et al., 2020; BARUA & ZAMAN, 2019; Hossain & Sakib, 2016). To the best of the authors' knowledge, no research was conducted to examine the role of SMM on OBE in the telecommunication sector in Bangladesh along with mediated and moderated effects of VC and BL. Therefore, this study will fill the present research gap in emerging overall brand equity literature from a social media marketing perspective.
This study is organized as follows: After the introductory section, literature review on social media marketing, value co-creation, brand love, and overall brand equity. Next, the methodology is explained followed by data analysis. The last part encompasses discussions and managerial implications along with research limitations and suggestions for future research directions.