The potential of social media for luxury brand management

Purpose: Driven by functional theories of attitude and addressing the emerging themes of luxury brands and social media, the purpose of this paper is to explore the marketing potential of social media for luxury brand management. Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted to prompt participants to explore Louis Vuitton's Facebook page and complete a questionnaire designed to measure their satisfaction with the luxury brand's Facebook page and various endogenous variables. Findings: Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses uncovered dynamic relationships among consumers' perceptions of value-expressive and social-adjustive functions of luxury brands, satisfaction with a luxury brand's (Louis Vuitton) Facebook page, attitudes toward the brand, intentions to utilize the brand's social media (Facebook and Twitter) for online shopping, and intentions to research online and purchase offline (ROPO). Originality/value: This paper marks an exploratory step toward our understanding of the dynamic roles user-generated content and social media play in the formation and maintenance of the emerging consumer-brand-consumer triad culture. Theoretical and managerial implications of this exploratory research are discussed.