Attachment to Facebook
Consumers’ relationships with brands take very different forms. Attitude toward the brand often serves to express consumers’ brand relationships, but other concepts are available as well. For example, Batra, Ahuvia, and Bagozzi (2012) propose “brand love,” which consumers live in an intense, deep way. Extending experiential marketing to the brand level produces the brand experience concept (Brakus, Schmitt, & Zarantonello, 2009). Other brand-related concepts seek to specify the nature of the relationship between the individual and the brand. For example, a brand commitment approach mobilizes different (emotional, cognitive, behavioral) aspects of the brand relationship (Shuv-Ami, 2012) such as brand loyalty. Escalas and Bettman (2005), study self–brand connections to characterize the way individuals appropriate the brand, in the sense that they recognize themselves in the brand. Self-image congruence (Sirgy et al., 1997) is similar to self–brand connections, in that the brands contribute to help create and socially express their users’ self-concept.
Finally, the concept of brand attachment also can characterize the relationship with the brand, from an emotional perspective. Studies adopting this concept (e.g., Park, MacInnis, Eisinggerich, & Iacobucci, 2010) show that the brand attachment creates a strong emotional link between the self and the brand that is rich in meaning for the consumer. These authors also show that attachment to the brand differs from the attitude toward the brand, with greater predictive power. In particular, brand attachment can minimize the risk of disloyalty in competitive situations.
For Facebook, attachment might refer to an attachment to the brand or to the social network itself and its services. These two sides cannot be dissociated, because of the uniqueness of its offer and brand. Therefore, several distinct and specific potential determinants of attachment to Facebook, are consider. The primary focus is psychosocial determinants, including the extent of the user’s network, time spent on Facebook, and feelings of social recognition. Noting the central importance of social interactions in digital networks, their direct effects on attachment to Facebook are investigated, as well as their indirect effects on brand loyalty.