The influence of social media characteristics on customer engagement: An empirical study on smartphone industry

The cellular phone becomes the foremost important object in every individual's life. Whether it is smart or not, due to the limitations of the technology and resembling expectations, cellular phone manufacturers find themselves in compelling digital marketing challenges. Social media is the new dimension for those manufacturers who wants to aim to improve their consumer engagement on their particular brands. This study aimed to research the relationships between entertainment, customization, interaction, word of mouth and trend between engagement factors such as cognitive engagement and emotional engagement in the Smartphone Industry. With the knowledge collected from existing literature, a comprehensive questionnaire was created, settled into the Turkish context and delivered online. The questionnaire was responded by 334 individuals from different parts of Turkey with different demographics then stressed under factor analysis, reliability analysis, regression analysis and independent sample testing using SPSS tool to test hypotheses. The study specified strong positive relations between entertainment, customization, word of mouth, trend and interactivity and customer engagement factors. Also, it is experienced that emotional engagement differs significantly among males and females. Moreover, the emotional engagement level seemed to differ among intensive internet users and light internet users on a daily manner. Finally, this study is intended to add to current literature a detailed quantitative analysis and is aimed at offering insights into future studies on consumer engagement.