Abstract:

The advent of social media has revolutionized the approach to marketing activities. The presence of brands on social networking sites is not only an obligation but also a big challenge for marketers and people responsible for managing these activities. Social media provide the possibility of two-way communication, engaging consumers not only in promotional activities but also often in the process of developing new product concepts. Generally, in social networking sites, users can take steps to establish and maintain their relations with brands. They can like, subscribe or follow other pages to show their positive attitude towards brands, their support and interest. On the other hand, more and more social networking sites offer an opportunity to limit some pages activity. This means that the user can also stop displaying posts published by a brand page (for a while e.g 30 days or for forever), or can take a more drastic decision, which is removing a brand page from the likes, subscribers, or followers list. These decisions are more and more popular and based on different information and reasons. These behaviors are the consumer’s direct expression that he or she no longer wants to be involved in brand communication activities. This means that research is needed to understand consumers’ reasons for stop engaging in social media communication by exploring why people stop like fan pages or decide to hide activity. This study examined what drives consumers to hide brand posts and unlike brand pages on social media sites which are most often used by fast fashion clothing brands — Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Pinterest and Snapchat. Analyzing responses from 1000 research participants using the face-to-face interview method who has ever liked a fast fashion clothing brand on social media, this study found that the intention to hide brand posts or dislike brand pages was caused by two key factors: bad consumer experience with a brand and by errors in brand communication