The Impacts of Electronic Word of Mouth on Brand Equity in the Context of Social Media

Social media has become the driving force which transforms the web into an interactive information andcommunications technology device. Social media has a significant role in influencing customer’s choice inselecting products and services based on the customers’ feedbacks that appeared in the weblogs, web sites,online boards and other kinds of user-generated content (Raman, 2009). It is indeed important to remember thatbrand equity is no longer valued by large sums of money that companies invest; instead customers are dictatingthe value of brand equity by what they are saying to each other. Therefore, this study will focus on evaluating theroles of various brand equity constructs (including brand loyalty, brand association, brand awareness and brandimage) in mediating the interrelation among electronic word of mouth and the dimensions of brand equity in thecontext of social media. There were total of 300 usable questionnaires were collected in this research. Thefinding revealed that there is an indirect inter-relationship between electronic word of mouth and the dimensionof brand equity, mediated by the respective various brand equity constructs.