The Effect of Social Media Usage Characteristics on e-WOM, Trust, and Brand Equity: Focusing on Users of Airline Social Media

Brand equity is a valuable intangible asset for companies, yet is increasingly difficult in managing in an era with hard to control social media. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of social media usage characteristics on electronic word-of-mouth (e-WOM), trust, and brand equity by dividing the characteristics to personality, social, and information. A survey was administered to 430 respondents who had experience of using airline social media and the collected data was analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results showed that the personality and informational characteristics from social media usage had statistically significant effects on e-WOM. It was found that the e-WOM had significant effects on trust and also on brand awareness. The trust was shown to have a statistically significant effect on brand awareness and brand image. Therefore, this study categorizes social media usage characteristics into three characteristics: personality characteristics, social characteristics, and information characteristics, and each of these usage characteristics present a strategy to improve actual brand equity of airline through e-WOM and trust in empirical methods. The findings of this study are expected to provide fundamental data for the development of strategies related to airline social media. In addition, this study has implications for suggesting to improve brand equity through e-WOM and trust.