The role of social network websites in the consumer–brand relationship

• Experiential and functional benefits have positive effects on perceived relationship quality.
• Functional benefits do not have positive effects on BSN relationship quality.
• BSN relationship quality has a positive effect on brand relationship quality.
• BSN relationship quality has a positive effect on BSN WOM.
• BSN WOM does not have a positive effect on the willingness to pay price premium.

Building and leveraging the brand community on a social network website (SN) such as Facebook is one of the popular social media strategies that companies employ to build a consumer–brand relationship. This research empirically tests a theoretical argument that the perceived benefits of a brand׳s social network website (BSN) influence the consumer׳s relationship with the brand׳s SN, which in turn leads to loyalty behavior. After qualitative exploration of the community to understand the practice of BSN, a quantitative method was utilized to test the hypothesized relationships. The results provide general support for the positive effect of BSN benefits on outcome variables. Specifically, experiential and functional benefits of a brand׳s SN positively influence the consumer׳s perception of relationship investment made by the brand, resulting in both brand relationship quality and the willingness to spread good words about the brand׳s SN. In addition, experiential benefits of BSN positively influence BSN relationship quality, which in turn leads to brand relationship quality, while the effect of functional benefits on BSN relationship quality is not found. The findings provide practical managerial suggestions to marketers and theoretical implications for future studies.