Festivals are integral part of the tourism sector that face unique brand building challenges due to their community-building purpose and the limited time frame in which they take place. To overcome this challenge, festivals are increasingly using social media to extend the limits of engagement by providing opportunities to continue interacting online throughout each festival phase (before, during, after). The purpose of this study is to examine how social media use throughout various phases provides different outcomes for festival attendees. Using cluster analysis, this study identified four distinct segments (Social Media Inactives, Real-Time Engagers, Offline Engagers, Social Media Actives) of festival-related social media users based on which phases of the festival they engaged. Findings revealed significant differences between the segments regarding their age, sense of community, and festival loyalty. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.