Debates on the importance of user-generated content (UGC) and consumer brand engagement have increasingly gained attention amongst researchers, practitioners, marketing managers, and business leaders. UGC is a concept popularized in the 21st century with the advent and rise of Web 2.0 technology. Web 2.0 has gained recognition due to its novel features that include openness, participation, and the facilitation of the creation and sharing of content. It revolutionized interactions amongst people, and users are now able to share and create personalized content on the internet instead of merely using the content available. The primary objective of this chapter is to evaluate the influence of UGC on consumer brand engagement and discuss its impact on customers and organizational marketing practices.

The current theory on strategy formulation is based significantly on environmental analysis and leveraging strategic capability. There is limited understanding of how corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social media strategies could develop the strategy formulation to improve strategic outcomes. The input into the strategic formulation process does not tend to take account of customers’ inclination for CSR practices and policies. This is particularly important for consumers who can spurn organisations that do not incorporate ethical practices in their core values. The paper aims to show that social media is an inclusive tool, because of the duplex communication techniques that enhance it, and CSR is complementary to building a robust strategic planning process. The methodology is a qualitative case study using a reflective perspective based on a complete participant role. The results demonstrate that there are challenges in operating a strategic planning process that is situated in an uncertain, volatile and dynamic business environment; it requires an integrated partnership between the inter-organisational actors and other stakeholders. Social media is the integrator of resources and CSR helps to build relationships, acting as a reinforcer of trust.

Online behavioral tailoring has become an integral part of online marketing strategies. Contemporary marketers increasingly seek to create an influential environment on social media to empower online users to participate in online brand communities. By interacting in this way, online communities hosted by brands marketers can enhance the nature of the complex interactions that occur amongst those that participate. Such online interactions lead to three different types of social influence compliance, internalization, and identity, which develop the consumers' purchase intentions. This chapter explains how the social influence support the change in beliefs, attitude, and intentions of the online consumers in the user-generated social media networking sites (SNSs). Furthermore, it discusses the functional impact of such online social influence that enables companies to understand the perceptions and needs of online users making sense of how multiple levels of social influence phenomenon on social media impact on consumers purchase intentions.