Consumer Engagement in Social Media : A netnographic study of the company-owned Facebook pages of Nike and Adidas

Abstract: To know which content needs to be posted on social media sites is crucial for generating highlevels of consumer engagement. To shed new light in this research area, this inductive research investigated consumer engagement behaviors in the Facebook online communities of the sporting goods brands of Adidas and Nike. As this study considers human behaviors in the online sphere, a netnographic research design was applied. With the help of the CAQDAS software NVivo 11, the 25 most engaging posts of each brand were analyzed. The results of this research indicate that content which inspires and entertains the online community members is one highly important source of consumer engagement together with frequent brand replies. Further, the right timing and choosing the right media type needs to be considered as well. The paper ends with a discussion of the results. Finally, it presents academic and managerial implications as well as research limitations and opportunities for further research.