THE EFFECTS OF COLLECTIVISM AND SOCIAL NETWORK SELF-CONGRUITY ON ENGAGEMENT Sara Santos 1 and Pedro Espírito Santo 2 1 Escola Superior de Educação de Coimbra, R. Dom João III, 3030-329 Coimbra, Portugal 2 Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra, ESTGOH, Rua Gen. Santos Costa, 3400-124 Oliveira do Hospital, Portugal ABSTRACT In recent years, social media and special social networks are being part of people's everyday lives and consumers use a variety of social media channels daily. For firms, it has become a key tool in the promotion of brands, products and services. Furthermore, people have different characteristics of individualism, collectivism and congruity with social networks. However, empirical research on consumer–brand engagement on social networks is still scarce. The aim of this research is to understand the relation among collectivism, self-congruity with social network and social networks engagement. Using an online questionnaire conducted across 484 participants in Portugal, the results show that collectivism has a positive influence on social network engagement (consumption and contribution). Our finds also reveal that self-congruence of individuals has influence on their engagement with social networks. In practical implications, marketers should see the values and lifestyle of their users to improve their social networks pages. KEYWORDS Collectivism, Individualism, Self-Congruity, Social Networks, Engagement 1. INTRODUCTION In recent years the exponential growth of social media and special social networks sites leads to increase of interactions and continuous connection between users and brands, between users and even between brands and brands. It is important to distinguish between social media and social networks sites. Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) consider that social media facilitates interaction, collaboration and content sharing and there are six types of social media plataforms: blogs (Wordpress, Tumblr or Twitter - microblogging), collaborative sites (e.g. Wikipedia), content creation communities (e.g, YouTube), virtual worlds (World of Warcraft), virtual social worlds (e.g, Second Life) and social networking sites. Social network sites are “web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share connection, and view and traverse their list of connections made by others within the system” (Boyd & Ellison, 2007, p. 211). In this study we analyze the relation among collectivism, self-congruity with social network and social networks engagement (consumption and contribution). 2. LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Social Networks Engagement In the last decade consumer engagement, namely consumer-brand-engagement (CBE) has been the target of several studies (Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014). However, there is no consensus regarding its definition (Dessart, Veloutsou, & Morgan-Thomas, 2015). International Conferences ICT, Society, and Human Beings 2019; Connected Smart Cities 2019; and Web Based Communities and Social Media 2019 293