Interactive Digital Advertising vs. Virtual Brand Community

This study explores the influence of user motivation to engage in online social networking on responses to social media marketing. It addresses two aspects of user motivation, need for online social capital and psychological well-being, and two types of social media marketing, interactive digital advertising and virtual brand community. Facebook provides the target social networking site. A survey among 502 college-aged Facebook users in Taiwan reveals that these users responded to Facebook advertising and virtual brand communities differently. Users’ motivation for online social networking had varying effects on their social media marketing responses. These results have key implications for social media marketing use in social networking online.