Enterprise microblog as a new marketing strategy for companies: Enterprise microblog commitment and brand loyalty

With the emergence and bloom of microblogging, companies are showing their increasing interests in this platform and try to establish their own enterprise accounts (called as enterprise microblogs in this case) in it, which enables them to broadcast product information, interact with consumers, and promote their brands. Despite much work focusing on how virtual brand communities take effect on consumers' loyalty in the area of IS and marketing research, this paper aims to explore how companies can take advantage of their enterprise microblogs to enhance consumers' brand loyalty. Our study aims to develop and empirically validate a brand loyalty model within the context of enterprise microblogs. In our framework, users' enterprise microblog trust and sense of community positively affect their enterprise microblog commitment, and then enterprise microblog commitment leads to brand loyalty as a result.