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A research on how companies can utilize social media to enhance brand loyalty at international level: a case study of HUAWEI and LENOVO

  • Year of Publication:
  • 2020

The internet has quickly become a central part of the business world with a lot of functions of the company going online. The internet connects people all over the world thus eliminating the geographical gap that exists between the people. This makes it easier for international companies to access their customers without having to spend too much on advertising (Mehrabi, et al., 2014). It would therefore be reasonable for a company to use the internet to access most of the customers which is why social media is often used to promote brand loyalty of a company (Erdogmus & Cicek, 2012). As soon as companies realised that the social media provides a communication channel of marketing their products to consumers, they were intrigued and many went on board with the marketing method (Miao, 2016).

Social media quickly gained ground with people and it has become a craze that keeps growing and offers a rare opportunity for brands to interact with their customers directly without an intermediary, and get feedback from the customers, making it easier for the brands to understand what the customers want and tailoring their operation towards the needs of the customers fostering brand loyalty (Keller, 2008). From a survey conducted in the united states in 2015, it was found that 73% of the Americans had a profile on at least one of the social media networks which was an increase from the 48% of 2010 (Experian, 2015).

Companies are quickly substituting branded websites with multiple social media accounts thus creating a community that is loyal to their brands. Even though the websites of the companies are still the main areas for brand promotion, the companies are trying their best to create social media platforms that are funny, interactive and attractive to the customers (Huang & Liao, 2018). This move is difficult one as it is as unpredictable as the human behaviour is unpredictable. It takes a lot of planning on the part of the company to get it right and the formulation of the proper Customer Relationship Tactics to make sure that the customers are kept interested in the product the company is marketing (Huang & Liao, 2018).

It is always important for a company to build customer loyalty with the targeted consumers since it drives up the sales made. The concept of building brand loyalty involves learning about and interacting with brand communities to make sure that an understanding of the consumers is achieved thus creating the proper strategies to entice the consumers. Social media platforms provide these communities and companies use these platforms to connect with the admirers of their brands and to get other consumers on board with their products by the company giving their own perceptions of the products that they are providing for the consumers, subtly introducing reactions of competitive jabs to make sure that the consumers are kept interested by closely interacting with the most loyal consumers (Miao, 2016).

To gain an understanding of how companies use social media to gain brand loyalty, this paper tries to understand the relationship between brand loyalty and social media. The paper has used Huawei, a Chinese technological company, and Lenovo, a Chinese multinational company, as case studies to establish the relationship between the two. It analyses the companies’ presence on Facebook and Twitter which are the biggest social media websites. It is therefore important to understand the brand of each of the companies first.

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