Exploring Customer Engagement in Social Commerce: A Literature Review of Frameworks, Pathways, and Emerging Trends
Received: 31 October 2024 | Revised: 25 November 2024 | Accepted: 14 December 2024 | Online: 18 February 2025
Corresponding author: Sharizal Hashim
Abstract
Customer Εngagement (CE) in social commerce (s-commerce) has become a focal point for businesses seeking to build long-term consumer relationships in digitally mediated environments. This literature review synthesizes existing research on CE within s-commerce, examining theoretical foundations, key antecedents, mediating and moderating factors, and engagement outcomes. The key findings indicate that among the most important variables for CE is the social support, platform interactivity, and hedonic motivations, while trust and satisfaction act as crucial mediators that bridge initial engagement drivers and long-term outcomes, like brand loyalty and Word-of-Mouth (WοM). Furthermore, the current review discusses the role of moderators, such as demographic characteristics and platform-specific features, in conditioning the impact of CE efforts. It is revealed that engaged consumers not only exhibit increased loyalty and advocacy, but also contribute to the co-creation and community-building efforts within the s-commerce. Future research is encouraged to explore emerging technologies, like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR), cross-cultural variations in CE, and the ethical concerns surrounding the data privacy and personalization. This review contributes a comprehensive synthesis of CE in s-commerce, positioning it as a strategic asset for brands aiming to foster a sustainable CE in digital ecosystems.
Keywords:
customer engagement, social commerce, social exchange theory, Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR)Downloads
References
S.-E. Chong, S.-I. Ng, N. K. Basha, and X.-J. Lim, "Social commerce in the social media age: understanding how interactive commerce enhancements navigate app continuance intention," Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing, vol. 18, no. 5, pp. 865–899, May 2024.
S.-E. Chong, S.-I. Ng, N. B. K. Basha, and X.-J. Lim, "How do I deal with complex social commerce landscape? Understanding continuance intention using approach and avoidance motivations model," Aslib Journal of Information Management, Jun. 2024.
W. M. Lim and T. Rasul, "Customer engagement and social media: Revisiting the past to inform the future," Journal of Business Research, vol. 148, pp. 325–342, Sep. 2022.
A. Jessen et al., "The playground effect: How augmented reality drives creative customer engagement," Journal of Business Research, vol. 116, pp. 85–98, Aug. 2020.
R. Sallaku and V. Vigolo, "Predicting customer loyalty to Airbnb using PLS-SEM: the role of authenticity, interactivity, involvement and customer engagement," The TQM Journal, vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 1346–1368, Dec. 2022.
S. F. Salem and A. B. Alanadoly, "Driving customer engagement and citizenship behaviour in omnichannel retailing: evidence from the fashion sector," Spanish Journal of Marketing - ESIC, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 98–122, Oct. 2023.
I. Nahum-Shani, S. D. Shaw, S. M. Carpenter, S. A. Murphy, and C. Yoon, "Engagement in digital interventions," American Psychologist, vol. 77, no. 7, pp. 836–852, 2022.
M. Barari, M. Ross, S. Thaichon, and J. Surachartkumtonkun, "A meta-analysis of customer engagement behaviour," International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 45, no. 4, pp. 457–477, 2021.
H.-T. Tseng, M. Shanmugam, P. Magalingam, S. Shahbazi, and M. S. Featherman, "Managing enterprise social media to develop consumer trust," British Food Journal, vol. 124, no. 12, pp. 4626–4643, Feb. 2022.
S. Malesev and M. Cherry, "Digital and social media marketing - growing market share for construction SMEs," Construction Economics and Building, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 65–82, May 2021.
J. Gao et al., "Mental health problems and social media exposure during COVID-19 outbreak," PLOS ONE, vol. 15, no. 4, Apr. 2020, Art. no. e0231924.
M. Y. Bhutto, M. A. Khan, C. Sun, S. Hashim, and H. T. Khan, "Factors affecting repurchase intention of organic food among generation Z (Evidence from developing economy)," PLOS ONE, vol. 18, no. 3, Mar. 2023, Art. no. e0281527.
N. Rosli, E. R. Johar, M. L. H. B. M. Lazim, S. Hashim, and N. F. Juhari, "From Hearts to Carts: Understanding the Impact of Comments, Likes, and Share Functions on Consumer Purchase Intentions in a Social Media Landscape," European Journal of Sustainable Development, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 46–62, Jun. 2024.
N. A. Alabdulkarim, M. A. Haq, and J. Gyani, "Exploring Sentiment Analysis on Social Media Texts," Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 14442–14450, Jun. 2024.
N. Sureja, N. Chaudhari, P. Patel, J. Bhatt, T. Desai, and V. Parikh, "Hyper-tuned Swarm Intelligence Machine Learning-based Sentiment Analysis of Social Media," Engineering, Technology & Applied Science Research, vol. 14, no. 4, pp. 15415–15421, Aug. 2024.
N. Rosli, E. R. Johar, M. L. H. B. M. Lazim, S. Hashim, and N. F. Juhari, "Who’s the Winner? A Comparative Study of Like, Comment and Share Functions in Consumers’ Purchase Intention between Facebook and Instagram," Institutions and Economies, vol. 16, no. 4, pp. 139–166, Oct. 2024.
E. Ahmed, H. Ak Entebang, S. Kit Yeng, S. Hashim, H. Muhammad, and R. Irfan Sabir, "Impact of Value Co-creation Behavior among Banking Customers of Pakistan," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 13, no. 10, pp. 1–19, Oct. 2023.
F. Ahmad et al., "Online Customer Experience Leads to Loyalty via Customer Engagement: Moderating Role of Value Co-creation," Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 13, Jul. 2022, Art. no. 897851.
Y. Huang, X. Zhang, and H. Zhu, "How do customers engage in social media-based brand communities: The moderator role of the brand’s country of origin?," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol. 68, Sep. 2022, Art. no. 103079.
M. A. Haq and M. Alshehri, "Insider Threat Detection Based on NLP Word Embedding and Machine Learning," Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing, vol. 33, pp. 619–635, Jan. 2022.
L. Vs, J. J. K., and T. Tijo, "Customer engagement – A Literature Review," Journal of Tianjin University Science and Technology, vol. 54, no. 10, pp. 487–499, 2021.
M. Srivastava and S. Sivaramakrishnan, "A bibliometric analysis of the structure and trends of customer engagement in the context of international marketing," International Marketing Review, vol. 39, no. 4, pp. 836–851, Feb. 2022.
H. Omar Zaki, N. A. Omar, S. Hashim, Y. Kamarulzaman, and S. Lada, "Talk to engage: The influence of smartphone voice assistants on consumers’ brand engagement," Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 584–608, Oct. 2024.
X. Ye, R. Hou, S. Wang, and N. A. B. Omar, "Social media, relationship marketing and corporate ESG performance," Finance Research Letters, vol. 63, May 2024, Art. no. 105288.
Z. Zhao, N. A. Omar, and H. O. Zaki, "Appraisal factors of sustainable purchase intentions in online shopping platform context: PLS-SEM with theory extensions," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, vol. 82, Jan. 2025, Art. no. 104118.
M. Blut, V. Kulikovskaja, M. Hubert, C. Brock, and D. Grewal, "Effectiveness of engagement initiatives across engagement platforms: A meta-analysis," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 51, no. 5, pp. 941–965, Sep. 2023.
S. Hu, U. Akram, F. Ji, Y. Zhao, and J. Song, "Does social media usage contribute to cross-border social commerce? An empirical evidence from SEM and fsQCA analysis," Acta Psychologica, vol. 241, Nov. 2023, Art. no. 104083.
P. Parihar, J. Dawra, and V. Sahay, "The role of customer engagement in the involvement-loyalty link," Marketing Intelligence & Planning, vol. 37, no. 1, pp. 66–79, Sep. 2018.
Y. S. Ali and A. R. C. Hussin, "Electronic Word of Mouth Engagement Model in Social Commerce," in International Conference of Reliable Information and Communication Technology, Johor, Malaysia, Sep. 2019, pp. 985–994.
A. H. Busalim, A. R. C. Hussin, N. A. Iahad, A. H. Busalim, A. R. C. Hussin, and N. A. Iahad, "Factors Influencing Customer Engagement in Social Commerce Websites: A Systematic Literature Review," Journal of theoretical and applied electronic commerce research, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 1–14, 2019.
R. G. Bilro and S. M. C. Loureiro, "A consumer engagement systematic review: synthesis and research agenda," Spanish journal of marketing-ESIC, vol. 24, no. 3, pp. 283–307, 2020.
C. Liew and S. Lian, "Customer Engagement in Social Media and Purchase Intentions in the Hotel Industry," International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 54–68, Jan. 2019.
A. Wongkitrungrueng and N. Assarut, "The role of live streaming in building consumer trust and engagement with social commerce sellers," Journal of Business Research, vol. 117, pp. 543–556, Sep. 2020.
F. de Oliveira Santini, W. J. Ladeira, D. C. Pinto, M. M. Herter, C. H. Sampaio, and B. J. Babin, "Customer engagement in social media: a framework and meta-analysis," Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, vol. 48, no. 6, pp. 1211–1228, Nov. 2020.
B. Pradhan, K. Kishore, and N. Gokhale, "Social media influencers and consumer engagement: A review and future research agenda," International Journal of Consumer Studies, vol. 47, no. 6, pp. 2106–2130, 2023.
R. Connolly, O. Sanchez, D. Compeau, and F. M. de S. Tacco, "Understanding Engagement in Online Health Communities: A Trust-Based Perspective," Journal of the Association for Information Systems, vol. 24, no. 2, pp. 345–378, Jan. 2023.
R. B. Kline, Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling, Fourth Edition. New York, NY, USA: Guilford Press, 2015.
X.-J. Lim, J.-H. Cheah, D. S. Waller, H. Ting, and S. I. Ng, "What s-commerce implies? Repurchase intention and its antecedents," Marketing Intelligence & Planning, vol. 38, no. 6, pp. 760–776, Oct. 2019.
C. H. Lee, C. W. Chen, W. K. Chen, and K. H. Lin, "Analyzing the Effect of Social Support and Customer Engagement on Stickiness and Repurchase Intention in Social Commerce: A Trust Transfer Perspective," Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 363–381, 2021.
A. H. Busalim, F. Ghabban, and A. R. C. Hussin, "Customer engagement behaviour on social commerce platforms: An empirical study," Technology in Society, vol. 64, Feb. 2021, Art. no. 101437.
N. Tran-Danh, H. Tran-Thi-Phuong, and A. Nguyen-Thi-Ngoc, "The Role of Immersion and Presence in Building Customer Engagement in Social Commerce Livestreaming: An Empirical Study in Vietnamese Context," in Proceedings of the International Conference on Management and Business 2021, 2021, pp. 440–450.
S. Molinillo, R. Anaya-Sanchez, and F. Liebana-Cabanillas, "Analyzing the effect of social support and community factors on customer engagement and its impact on loyalty behaviors toward social commerce websites," Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 108, Jul. 2020, Art. no. 105980.
M. Song, L. Qiao, and R. Law, "Formation path of customer engagement in virtual brand community based on back propagation neural network algorithm," International Journal of Computational Science and Engineering, vol. 22, no. 4, pp. 454–465, Jan. 2020.
S. Qiao and J. Wei, "Research on the Factors Affecting Customer Engagement in Social Commerce from the Perspective of Two-Factor Theory: -- Platform Comparison Between E-Commerce and Social Media," Frontiers in Business, Economics and Management, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 8–13, Jun. 2021.
D. Novita and A. P. Budiarti, "Perceived security, trust, privacy, and continuance intention of e-commerce customer," Operations Management and Information System Studies, vol. 2, no. 1, 2022.
S. K. Roy, G. Singh, S. Sadeque, P. Harrigan, and K. Coussement, "Customer engagement with digitalized interactive platforms in retailing," Journal of Business Research, vol. 164, Sep. 2023, Art. no. 114001.
Downloads
How to Cite
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Ghaith Abdulridha Mubdir, Sharizal Hashim, Abu Hanifah Ayob, Nadzirah Rosli
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain the copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) after its publication in ETASR with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
