Consumer engagement on social media: an analysis of brand post characteristic combinations

Given the increasing importance of using social media to maintain consumer engagement, brands design posts using different characteristics that interact with each other to generate combination, which jointly influence consumer engagement. A methodological innovation is presented in which rough set theory is employed to analyse single and combined effects of brand post characteristics on consumer engagement on the Sina Weibo platform. Diverse characteristic combinations are shown to affect consumer engagement at varying intensities. The method is complementary in confirming single and combined effects of post characteristics. The research strengthens the understanding of consumer engagement based on characteristic combination perspective and helps to provide more effective reference to formulate social media marketing strategies owing to being closer to the real-world situation faced by brands.