Abstract—The universal popularity of social media enable consumers to experience their customer value in this new media. Hence, it is necessary for marketing researchers to investigate the antecedents and consequences of customer value in social media. However, it appears that no study is conducted on this topic. In order to fill this void, we constructed a research model that incorporated flow experience as the endogenous variable, interdependence self-construal and independent self-construal as exogenous variables, as well as social value and content value as mediating variables. Based upon the data from a sample of 437 social media consumers collected through an online survey and through the analysis of the data with the help of structural equation modeling, we found that consumers’ interdependent self-construal has a positive effect on their social value while consumers’ independent self-construal has a positive effect on their content value, that both social value and content value can enhance consumers’ flow experience respectively.

Index Terms—social media, self-construal, customer value, flow

Cite: Yongbing Jiao, Jing Gao, and Jian Yang, "Social Value and Content Value in Social Media: Two Ways to Flow," Journal of Advanced Management Science, Vol. 3, No. 4, pp. 299-306, December 2015. doi: 10.12720/joams.3.4.299-306