اثر فعالیت بازاریابی رسانه های اجتماعی بر وفاداری برند: اثر واسطه ای تجاری و درک ارزش The influence of perceived social media marketing activities on brand loyalty The mediation effect of brand and value consciousness

Introduction Social media is defined as “a group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technical foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user generated content” (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010, p. 61). Those applications take a variety of forms, including weblogs, social blogs, microblogging, wikis, podcasts, pictures, video, rating and social bookmarking. In January 2014, 74% of online adults worldwide use social networking sites (Duggan et al., 2015). Social media platforms play a big part in the daily lives of their users (Okazaki, 2009). Moreover, social media allow users to connect with peers by adding them to networks of friends, which facilitates communication, particularly among peer groups (Ahuja and Galvin, 2003; Zhang and Daugherty, 2009). Globally, more than 50% of social media users follow brands on social media (Belleghem et al., 2011) and 29% follow trends and find product reviews and information, and 20% comment on what’s hot or new or to review products (Gallup, 2014). In Malaysia social media penetration is 64%, which is considered one of the highest in Asia pacific region – second only to Singapore. Marketers view the social media landscape in Malaysia as vibrant, with most of the Malaysian population turning to social media platforms (http://www.marketing-interactive.com/state-social-media-malaysia/, 2016). Consumers use social media to find information about desired products with the best prices. Social media have inexorably changed how consumers and marketers communicate (HennigThurau et al. 2004; Nambisan and Baron 2007). Social media gives consumers a voice, and allows them to interact and share their experiences with any person anywhere in the world (Kozinets et al., 2010). In general, consumers have different orientations when making purchase decision. Consumers are either brand conscious who view brands as symbols of status and prestige, or value conscious, who use social media to check and compare the prices of different brands, to get the best value for their money. Businesses are joining social media to target those two types of consumers and actively perform less costly integrated marketing activities. An overwhelming majority of marketers worldwide 97% are participating in social media marketing to market their business (Stelzner, 2014). More than half of marketers 54% chose Facebook as their most important platform. Social media being used as a marketing tool mainly for four purposes: (1) market research and feedback generation; (2) publicity, branding, and reputation management; (3) business networking; and (4) customer service and customer relationship management (Thoring, 2011). Although businesses have joined social media to increase brand awareness and acquire more customers, the question still remains of how brand loyalty can be built and strengthened through social media? Understanding how social media marketing activities influence brand loyalty is important for strategic marketing. Another question that is addressed in this study is: What is the effect of perceived social media marketing activities on brand- and value conscious consumers? The current study is attempting to address this knowledge gap by developing a research model to test the relationships among social media marketing activities, brand consciousness, value consciousness and brand loyalty.