More of the same? Effects of volume and variety of social media brand engagement behavior

Increasing consumer engagement is a cornerstone of companies’ social media efforts. However, how social media brand engagement behavior affects brand performance remains largely unexplored. We capture engagement along two dimensions – volume and variety – and measure brand performance using consumers’ brand attachment, attitudes, and purchase intentions. Based on the power law of practice and combining survey measures with social media data, our analyses reveal a diminishing marginal utility of engagement volume, as the positive impact of engagement behavior on brand outcomes declines at higher engagement levels. However, the variation across performed activities attenuates these diminishing returns on engagement volume. We find consistent evidence for these effects across two studies with 1347 consumers who interacted with different brands. The results question companies’ often unidimensional focus on increasing engagement volume. Instead, our findings suggest that to maximize brand performance on social media platforms, companies should also encourage engagement variety.