The presence of the COVID-19 pandemic has deepened the need for businesses to reconsider their marketing strategies for survival. This has become necessary due to the shift in consumer habits and demands as a consequence of the crisis. The lockdown and social distancing among other factors have forced more businesses to result to the use of digital platforms in order to continue to meet the needs of their target audiences. Fortunately, consumers across the world have wholeheartedly embraced digital channels in fulfilling their needs and now seem to shop online much more than before. Nonetheless, in the digital platform era, the word engagement and participation are the fundamental non-transactional constructs employed to explain the nature of the participant's unique interactive experiences. In this chapter, the authors set out to look at some factors that could lead to increased online engagement. Among the factors hypothesized are the presence of the COVID-19 pandemic, online advertisement, and electronic word of mouth. The chapter recommends further testing of the proposed hypothesis.
TopIntroduction
Lately, marketing has seen monumental changes in the manner in which information is delivered to clients (Cvijikj & Michahelles, 2013; Mangold & Faulds 2009); credit to technology. By implication, technology has altered the way marketers now engage and communicate with their customers. Technological platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn among others have made it possible for people to connect and share content online irrespective of their location (Cvijikj & Michahelles, 2013; Boyd & Ellison, 2008). In complement according to Kumar (2018), rapid use of information technology has resulted in the emergence of several online platforms, which in turn have transformed how companies and businesses engage as well as create value for their clients. The marketing discipline has gradually evolved in its approach from customer management; moving from the transactional era to a relational era and currently adapting to the engagement era (Pansari & Kumar, 2017). Currently, marketing activities and articles reflect customer engagement perspective, as this has become a vital tool for companies to gain competitive edge (Gallup, 2019) by positively influencing important attitudes as well as behavioural outcomes such as customer satisfaction (Brodie, Ilic, Juric & Hollebeek, 2013), loyalty (Shanahan, Tran, & Taylor, 2019) as well as brand usage (Harrigan, Evers, Miles & Daly, 2018).
Firms are investing substantial amounts in online brand communities on social media platforms to strengthen their customer brand engagement and association. A large amount of consumer information produced in online brand communities (OBCs) not only helps companies to achieve a deeper understanding of buyer’s needs, wants and desires but also leads to potential purchasers viewing user-generated content on OBCs for instance comments, as relatively authentic, improving client’s discovery of new products or brands (Karpis, 2018). Thus, companies including information systems managers should manage their online content in a way that can improve the psychological processes of buyer engagement (Kamboj, Sarmah, Gupta & Dwivedi, 2018). This method, which spans businesses as well as information systems reveals buyer outcomes that improved brand performance (Harrigan, Miles, Fang, Roy, 2020). Companies can create and maintain their online platform for their clients to interact with the brand-related information they deliver as well as user-generated content from their followers (Hollebeek & Macy, 2019).
Firms can utilize the power of social media to engage buyers with their products, promote consumer brand relationships as well as increase sales of the product. Due to the widespread and availability of information technology, companies and businesses are increasingly seeking to established brand engagement on online platforms (Voorveld, 2019). Furthermore, digital platforms have attracted the interest of businesses and firms who see the potential to communicate their marketing messages to buyers as well as enter into a dialogue with them using word of mouth principles. Firms have shifted their customer approach from the traditional one to many engagements to a one to one approach including offering assistance at any time through the internet for instance YouTube, Facebook and others (Hanna et al. 2011). Thus, companies can design and moderate a brand page to monitor consumer’s activities.