Social Media Engagement, Brand Loyalty and Business Performance: A Comparative Study of Hero MotoCorp, TVS Motor Company and Bajaj Auto

Social media has become an important interface through which automotive brands communicate product value, build communities, respond to customers and influence purchase journeys. Yet the relationship between visible online engagement and durable brand loyalty is not automatic: likes, views and comments may signal attention without producing trust, repeat purchase, advocacy or improved business performance. This study proposes a comparative investigation of social media engagement, brand loyalty and business performance in the Indian two-wheeler sector, focusing on Hero MotoCorp, TVS Motor Company and Bajaj Auto. The study treats engagement as a multidimensional construct comprising cognitive attention, emotional connection and behavioural participation; brand loyalty as a combination of attitudinal commitment, repurchase intention, resistance to switching and advocacy; and business performance as a set of consumer-perceived outcomes supplemented, where comparable data are available, by publicly reported firm-level indicators. A mixed-method, explanatory design is proposed. The primary component would survey adult two-wheeler owners and prospective buyers in Indore district who have encountered social media content from at least one focal brand. A target sample of approximately 500 respondents is proposed, with screening and quota procedures to secure adequate representation across brands, age groups, gender, ownership status and platform use. The secondary component would analyse public brand communications, platform-level engagement indicators where accessible, annual reports, sales disclosures and relevant market context. Descriptive statistics, reliability and validity tests, confirmatory factor analysis, multigroup comparisons and structural equation modelling (SEM) are proposed, subject to sample adequacy and measurement quality. Qualitative interviews or open-ended responses would help interpret why engagement becomes—or fails to become—loyalty. The study’s principal contribution is to distinguish platform-visible engagement from psychologically meaningful engagement and to test brand trust, perceived authenticity, customer satisfaction and community identification as possible mechanisms or boundary conditions. The design also recognises the ecological limitation of linking individual-level survey responses directly to company-level financial outcomes. No empirical findings are asserted in this manuscript; results and managerial conclusions must follow actual data collection and analysis.